


I Left My Umbrella at Home

by hippityhoppy



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Drug Use, Friends to Lovers, Homophobia, Horror, Internalized Homophobia, Laughter During Sex, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Panic Attacks, Period-Typical Homophobia, Recreational Drug Use, Richie Tozier's Internalized Homophobia, Sharing a Bed, Sleep Paralysis, Slow Burn, Smoking, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Stanley Uris is So Done, chiquitita - abba, e rating is really just because of the second to last chapter, getting faked out by vanilla ice, its a s l o w burn, its tame i promise, richies general self destructive behaviors, stanley uris / patricia blum, the inherent romance of journey’s frontiers, there is angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:54:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 357,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22775233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippityhoppy/pseuds/hippityhoppy
Summary: By 1996, the Losers are well into college. As they often do, life and time have distanced them in more ways than one. Richie, in an attempt to cling to the normalcy of the past in what feels like a steep slope into a downward spiral, ends up on an unfamiliar doorstep of an all too familiar friend. As if Eddie didn't have to deal with enough on his own plate. The both of them, they quickly come to find out, are unprepared for the storms to come.Or: Some of the lost years, recovered. November 1996-November 2004.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 357
Kudos: 339





	1. DOESN’T THE TRASH MAN USUALLY COME ON TUESDAYS?

**NOVEMBER 1996**

**NEW YORK**

**THURSDAY: 11:23 PM**

Eddie had a modest smattering of photos stuck up on his bedroom walls, mostly clustered over his desk, hung lovingly with Scotch tape. His bedroom decor may have been lackluster for some tastes, but he was fairly satisfied with that much. He’d only be living there for two semesters, home for summer, then transplanted somewhere else for the next year. It didn’t make too much sense to get attached to the space. He could stand to be attached to the pictures. 

There were enough photos of the seven of them out there somewhere to fill an album all put together, although Eddie was fairly sure Beverly and Mike held onto the majority of them. Beverly was typically the owner of the camera and purchaser of the film, therefore the primary keeper of the photos, while Mike, resident historian, had his own healthy collection pasted into various college-ruled notebooks and journals. Eddie was lucky enough to have held onto a handful of his favorites. He knew he’d lost some over the years, but he was glad for what he did have. Only one included all of them in the same frame, taken what may have been the last time they were all together in 1990. The rest were various combinations of his friends and himself, mostly distributed between ages 12-15. A more recent one pictured and Mike Hanlon and himself, the only two Loser graduates of Derry High, in their black gowns and caps with the orange tassels. Mikes handwriting stood out in black sharpie along the white bottom border: _Congrats Eddie!_ _1994._ The older photos had lost a little saturation over time and years of sun-bleaching against blank walls. One of Eddie’s favorites pictured Richie Tozier, 13, caught dropping ice cream down the front of his shirt, circa 1989. It was over the summer, most likely early May. School had only recently been let out. The day was hot, the t-shirt was white, the ice cream was pink, the rest was history.

It seemed not much had changed. 

Eddie was hard pressed to think of something more disgusting than being forced to behold Richie Tozier, now 20, going to town on a Blizzard under the red and blue glow of a Dairy Queen sign a few minutes after closing. He was a large silhouette in the passenger seat of Eddie’s car, gangly hair looking like a greasy backlit halo. Eddie was baffled every time he saw him at just how tall he’d gotten, still somehow looking exactly like the dorky 13 year old he’d been when Eddie knew him best. Just stretched out. He wondered what kind of bullshit Willy Wonka taffy puller he’d been put through over the last couple years. 

An unfortunate M&M slid off the underside of Richie’s spoon and plopped without any real grace onto the front of his shirt. Richie hardly seemed to notice. He sucked a big glob of ice cream off the spoon and hummed to himself, content. Eddie watched, only slightly horrified, before returning to his own ice cream. He’d decided on a medium. Strawberry with the fruit chunks and everything. When he’d left his apartment that night, he’d been hankering for a large, but his plans had since changed. 

Like any stray worth his salt, Richie had shown up at the foot of Eddie’s apartment complex’s stairs in the dark and cold, scrawny and shivering. Eddie had had no choice but to let him tag along. 

Richie, to the best of Eddie’s now limited knowledge, most often occupied a dorm room in Boston or a bedroom at his parents’ house in Bumfuck-Nowhere, Missouri. He’d shown up in his typical form (unannounced) in a thin flannel, a denim jacket, and his usual shit eating beam. Eddie had only bickered with him for a moment at the base of the exterior stairs, wondering how the hell he’d gotten to Eddie’s in the first place without having called ahead. He was still in a state of mild disbelief that he was there at all. 

_“Bill gave me your new address.”_

_“When did you see Bill?”_

_“I crashed on his couch this weekend, and I was already out, so I figured I’d swing by.”_

_“It’s not swinging by if you're driving— isn’t Bill like three hours away? It’s a Thursday. It’s–late as shit.”_

_“Yeah, I had a long drive. And this is an incredibly warm welcome, Eds.”_

_“Well when you show up unannounced on a goddamn school night—“_

_“You’re not really mad.”_

He wasn’t. He was stupid relieved to see him, but had been a little repulsed by the sureness with which Richie had said it. He hadn’t had anything to say to that, instead giving him a brief (if slightly bitter) hug and dragging him along on his ice cream run. He hadn’t given Richie any time to warm up and insisted on taking his own car; Richie’s tin can may have already been warm from the drive, but Eddie was taking no chances. 

“I haven’t seen Bill in a while,” Eddie thought aloud, breaking the weird almost-silence (broken only by Richie’s slurping) in the parking lot. “And you haven’t darkened my doorstep in in just as long, huh?” 

Richie, in fact, hadn’t darkened Eddie’s doorstep since the two of them started college. He’d really only had a chance to visit over breaks, which meant Eddie was at home, which meant Richie couldn’t exactly stay there comfortably. They’d seen each other occasionally in various combinations with the other Losers here and there, but being progressively more busy and spread out came with age. 

Eddie was still grappling with that particular consequence of adulthood. He stirred his Blizzard. “It wouldn’t have killed you to drop by on a long weekend at some point.” 

“So you _have_ missed me.” Richie slurped another candy off the underside of his red plastic spoon and Eddie winced. Richie winked, redirecting the subject. “Bill’s like, an absolutely incredible stoner, I don’t know if you’d gotten that update.” 

Eddie sighed, dunking into his cup. It was already melting to soup under the assault of the car’s heater. “So I’ve been told.” 

“He opened the door with this incredible fucking bong in his hand, you should have seen the damn thing.” Richie opened his wingspan, too big for Eddie’s poor Civic (also circa approximately 1989), to demonstrate. Ice cream residue from his spoon met the ceiling and Eddie did his best to ignore it. An eye may have twitched. “Bigger than you. He had me on my ass in not 5 minutes. I didn’t have a second to catch up with him until the next morning, I was so zoinked.” 

“Tell me he got rid of the fucking—“

“No, Jesus, the ponytail’s still there. I think he’s named it.” He thought for a moment, a little smile brightening his face. “Stan named it, I can’t remember what it was.” 

Eddies eyebrows scrunched. “Stan was there too?” 

“No, no that was a while ago. I think he’s had the ponytail long enough for us to start throwing it birthday parties.” 

Eddie scraped the bottom of his cup with his spoon, tipping it to get at the last soggy strawberries at the bottom. He blinked, glancing again toward his friend. “I thought you said you stayed the weekend at Bill’s. The weekend was four days ago.” He took a bite, popping the spoon out of his mouth. One of Richie’s eyebrows went up a centimeter higher than usual. His fuzzy crown of flyaway hairs caught purple in the light of the DQ sign, red and blue reflecting on his glasses. “Where were you the rest of the week?” 

“I may have taken a quick detour to visit an old lover of mine.” Richie’s eyes caught that usual glint that always made Eddie’s stomach drop. He prepared for the worst. “Sonia says you’re doing great in school, by the way. The new kitchen countertops look gorgeous, have you been home to see them yet?” 

Eddie thumped his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes for a moment, exasperated. “I swear to _god_ you scrawny piece of _shit_ –“

Richie abruptly turned the FM dial on the radio, cutting a song off after only a few bars, and Eddie sat up, indignant. 

“What the fuck was that for?” 

“It was a sappy song, it’s not the right mood.”

Eddie blinked at him, offended. “It’s fucking a Fleetwood Mac song.” 

“Yeah, it's a sappy fucking Fleetwood Mac song, what about it?” 

Eddie simmered while Richie settled on a new station, big dumb paws fiddling with the tiny radio dials. The moment he seemed satisfied and sat back to go for another scoop of ice cream, Eddie turned the knob back. Richie dove in for a second attempt, sticky fingers making Eddie suck in a breath, swearing. They swatted at each other for a moment, Eddie clearly more fired up about this, before Eddie made a grab for the keys and yanked them out of the ignition, shutting off the music. His car chirped at him to remind him the parking lights were still on. 

“ _Hey—”_

“I know something’s going on here, Rich.” 

The sudden stark silence made his words seem heavier, Richie's eyes bigger and brighter somehow in the dimness. He looked at him with some level of sincerity. He seemed to hesitate, if only for a second, before shrugging it off. “That's very forward of you, Edward,” he started, reaching for his hand with stage tenderness. “I wouldn’t have expected that from you—“

Eddie snatched his hand away. Sticky bastard. “Quit kidding around, where have you been lately, man?” It sounded a little more hurt than he meant it to. It wasn’t that he was all that upset that he hadn’t seen Richie in a while, more concern as to why not. 

“God, you’re still as sweet as ever, arentcha?” Richie took a moment to snicker about Eddie’s heart wrenching sincerity and received a thump on the arm. He dropped his now empty Blizzard cup in the cup holder and raised his hands in defense. The spoon nearly flicked the window. 

The look Eddie gave him meant business, prompting him. 

Richie rolled his eyes.“Jesus, I meant to stay the weekend at Bill’s and ended up there longer, I haven’t seen him in a while. I was also stoned most of the time, I lost track of time.” 

Eddie looked on. 

Richie tipped his head. “Don’t interrogate me about this, come on.” A beat. His voice dropped a note or two. It still sounded so similar to the dorky nasally drawl he’d had right on the brink of puberty, now only a smidge deeper. Less cracks along the way. “I’m glad to see you man.” 

Now he was the one who sounded grossly sincere. 

Eddie rolled his eyes, finally breaking what was quickly becoming somewhat intense eye contact, and dropped his empty cup into Richie’s. He jammed the key back in the ignition and started her back up. Richie watched him in the fresh yellow glow of the cabin for a moment.

“It’s the middle of the semester.” 

Richie opened his mouth to say something, hesitated, and was promptly talked over. 

“I dropped ou–“

“You dropped out, didn’t you?” 

Richie furrowed his brow, adjusting his glasses. “Why the hell do you say it like that?” 

Exasperated, Eddie started to pull out of the empty little parking lot. “I dunno, I just figured you'd stick it out, seeing as you were halfway through. More than halfway through, actually—” 

“God, if I came here for anything, it was _not_ a lecture. I could g–“

“Go see my mom for that, yes, I know.” 

Richie nodded to the side. Not what he’d been going for that time, but a fair enough guess. He had him there. He slumped against the door as Eddie pulled out onto the dark street, trying to find any and all leg room in his stupid fussy compact car for the breif ride back to Eddie’s campus. Eddie switched back to his preferred station and Richie politely ignored the next dorky song to come on the radio, wondering how the hell Eddie found the one station for recently divorced great grandmothers in the area. But of course he did. Only Eddie. 

Eddie broke the silence again. “Your parents don't know?”

Richie blew air out of the corner of his mouth. 

Eddie pursed his lips, tone clipped. “Of course not.” 

“Sure, Eds, like you’d run home and immediately tell your mommy you dropped out of college.” 

Eddie rolled his eyes, barely tapping the breaks as he barreled through a stop sign. Richie ignored the vertigo when they swung through the intersection. As long as it had been since he’d seen Eddie, he hadn’t missed his driving. 

Eddie pressed his lips together, nose scrunching. Richie let out a breath through his nose and watched a tiny strip of restaurants pass in the window. He could practically feel Eddie thinking. He thought to make a joke about that being a laborious sort of process, but managed to keep his mouth shut as Eddie’s gears whirred. He caught a glimpse of his tense reflection in the driver’s side window as they passed a streetlight. 

Eddie’s voice ventured to break the silence. “You can stay on my couch for the weekend, but you have to come clean to your parents eventually.” 

“They’re just gonna be relieved they don’t have to cosign for another loan–“

Eddie swore and just barely made it through a yellow-red light, making Richie reach up for the panic handle without meaning to. On closer inspection of local traffic camera footage, one would find Eddie didn’t make it through at all. Not legally. He shook his head. “What are you going to do, couch hop for the next two years and forge a diploma?” 

“That doesn’t sound half bad, Eds.” Richie tilted his head, batting his eyes at him. “Do you love me enough to support me in my time of need should things not work out?” 

Eddie pulled into the parking lot and snagged a spot, parking at a solid 60 degree angle. He yanked the parking brake a little too hard and turned to face Richie more fully. It felt like he could look straight into his skull, and Richie wasn’t sure how much he liked it. 

“You can stay the weekend.” He pointed at him stiffly. “The _weekend_ , then you call your parents and figure this out.”

Richie felt a grin coming on and did his best to tamp it down. “That’s what–“

Eddie’s voice dropped to a hiss. “ _If you say–“_

“ _Bill_ that’s what Bill said,” he said, recovering. The last couple words hung on the end of a wheezy snicker. “You really don’t believe I’ve grown up at all, do you?” 

Looking a little miffed, Eddie made his exit without an answer, unlocking the door from the console for Richie as he stepped out and stood up. He wasn’t all that much taller than his car. A corner of Richie’s mouth turned up. It was remarkable how much he still looked like he did when they were kids, grumpy and flustered like that. Richie unfolded himself from the little car and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for Eddie to round the car. He gently elbowed him as he passed. “Have some faith in me.”

“You’re asking a lot here. A spot on my couch and faith in you is a lot.” He tapped his foot, looking very close to breaking into a grin. “I’m very busy.” 

“Running your school’s Sticks-Up-Asses Club by yourself must be exhausting, I’m sure.” 

Eddie so lightly elbowed him back, clearly meaning no harm. Richie’d been knocked down by him once or twice before, he knew when he was making it count. (Richie chalked it up to their respective low and high centers of gravity.) This was gentle. 

“Thin ice, Tozier.” 

Richie shook his head, knowing that wasn’t the case. 

“Where are you parked?” Eddie glanced around for only a moment before spotting Richie’s poor jalopy not far from where they stood, lit dimly and pathetically in a dull yellow streetlight. It’s tires looked bowlegged, heat still rising up from its overworked motor under the hood. “Jesus _Christ_ , I’m surprised you made it here in one piece.” 

Richie shrugged, hands in his pockets. “She’s a fighter.” 

“If that’s what you wanna call it.” 

They headed up the stairs and Eddie paused as he flipped through his keychain. “They should be in bed by now,” he said, mostly to himself. Then, to Richie, “my roommates have people over all the time, they shouldn’t say anything about one more poor son of a bitch crashing on the couch.”

Something in his tone sounded bitter. 

“How’s it going living with two randos?”

Eddie let out a very controlled little breath. Richie smiled, able to tell so easily he’d been waiting for the opportunity to complain but was trying not to be mean about it. “They disgust me just a little.” 

Eddie wrestled the door open and Richie padded inside behind him. 

“Great, so they’re normal. I’m sure we’ll get along fine.”

Eddie set him up, as promised, on the couch. The whole place smelled lightly of beer and pizza, an atmospheric choice Richie was sure Eddie had little input on or control over. Eddie hooked him up with a spare blanket and pillow and a little glass of water, and Richie settled in, having retrieved a backpack from his car now slumped against one leg of the banged up coffee table. He didn’t fit all too comfortably on the little couch, but it would do just fine. He tucked himself up on his side, trying to find a section of the cushions that wasn’t overly lumpy. The blanket smelled heavily of fabric softener. 

Richie already had his glasses off when Eddie leaned out of his dark bedroom one last time to check on him, nothing more than a nervous-looking silhouette. 

“I’ve got class early tomorrow, you can just come in here and get in my bed once I’m gone.” 

Richie ignored the little jolt in his gut at the thought. “Will I fit?”

“It’s an extra long. All dorm beds are, dipshit. They have to account for the occasional freak of nature like yourself.” 

Richie smiled. “Thanks, Spaghetti Man.” 

“Yeah.” Eddie’s voice sounded small in the quiet apartment. “Night. Don’t let my roommates give you any shit if you see them.” 

“Not a chance.” 

The door shut with a click, leaving behind only the low hum of the refrigerator in the tiny kitchen.

Eddie clambered into bed, head feeling light. It felt like there was an image of Richie crumpled up and dwarfing his dinky little couch burned into the back of his eyelids, backlit from the yellow streetlight slating in from outside the window. He made several attempts to stop thinking about it, unsure as to why he felt unsettled. He winced when he caught a glimpse of his alarm clock. 

That was supposed to have been a much faster and much lonelier Dairy Queen run. 

So much for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song mentioned: Gypsy by Fleetwood Mac


	2. THERE'S NOTHING SEXY ABOUT CIGARETTES: SMOKING KILLS, YOU KNOW

**FRIDAY: 7:36 AM**

“Anybody ever tell you you talk in your sleep?” 

Richie jolted himself awake, disoriented for a solid ten seconds. When the world swung back into proper perspective, Eddie stood next to the makeshift kitchen table/kitchen counter with a mug in his hands, idly clattering a spoon around in it. He was already dressed, hair tidy, glowing fuzzy in the grey morning.

Richie squinted in his general direction, chest tight. “What?” Glasses. He pawed the coffee table and shoved them on his face. Eddie looked better like that. A little prissy, but what would morning coffee be without a prissy Eddie? 

“You talk in your sleep. I could hear you from my room.”

“What did I say?” he asked stupidly, cottonmouthed. He shook his head and made a feeble attempt to flatten his hair, trying to resign himself to the fact that he’d need a shower before he could properly tamp it down.

“How the hell should I know? You were grumbling, for the most part.” Eddie went to pour a second mug of coffee.

“What time is it?” 

“Seven thirtyyyy– six,” Eddie said, checking his watch. Richie gave him a half devastated look. “I have an 8 am and I wanted to make sure you were fed before you tear up my kitchen.” 

Richie had several questions. Among them: Who ate at 7 am? Who in their right mind agreed to an 8 am class on a goddamn Friday? Let alone attended it? And Eddie looked downright bushy-tailed even at this hour. He closed his eyes with a soft breath and sank back into the too-cushy comfort of the couch. Eddie’s pillow smelled miraculously fresh. He was ready to disappear into it. “You made coffee as if you expect me to get up now.” Muffled. “That’s very sweet, Eds, but leans a little far toward wishful thinking.”

“I can only hope someday you’ll function on a normal human level.” 

“In no way is looking like you’re ready for a job interview at the local library at 7:30 in the morning normal human behavior.” 

Eddie looked sour in his little sweater with his tidy little button down collar peeking out at the neck. Navy blue on light blue on olive skin tone. Not a bad view this morning. He took a seat on the ugly little green armchair under the window, crossing his legs as he stirred in his sugar. “At least I don’t look like the human embodiment of a clump of moss on a tree stump.” He set the second mug on the coffee table within Richie’s reach. 

Richie grinned, hidden in the pillow. His glasses sat funny on his face. 

“I won’t be back for a while, I’ve gotta work for a couple hours after class.” Eddie had filled Richie in last night that he had some work study position at one of the school offices a couple hours a week. He was already finished with his coffee, having drained it in record time, heading to the sink to immediately wash and dry it. Clockwork. 

“I do adore how fiery you are even this early. You can’t fake that kind of zest.”

Eddie sighed, Richie worked his glasses off and tucked himself up on the tiny couch. The sink shut off quietly. 

“There’s cereal on top of the fridge.” 

Richie grunted, having already dozed for a second. “You couldn’t have left me a note? You woke me up to tell me there’s cereal on top of the fridge?” Richie nearly left it at that, but old habits urged him on. “I know you may not be able to see up there from your angle, but I would have found it just fine.” Richie flipped the pillow to the cool side and rolled with a grunt to face the back of the couch. The ugly cushion smelled like long forgotten weed. His right arm prickled as it started to wake up. He must have mangled it sleeping on it funny. Jesus. 

“I don’t _have_ to feed you, you know.” 

“You’ve gone beyond that. It’s too late now,” Richie told the back of the couch. “When people don’t want feral cats, they don’t feed them, sure, but fuck knows they don’t let them inside and tuck them in. Let alone make them coffee how they like it.” He gestured loosely to Eddie’s blanket sprawled across him and the steaming mug beside him. His arm dropped heavily and he hummed. 

Eddie quietly padded around the kitchen for a moment, and Richie found himself blinking sleep out of his eyes, ready to drop back to sleep in the sudden hush. He was nearly there when he felt a smack on his exposed calf, blinking up at the blurry retreating silhouette of Eddie, backpack slung on one shoulder, heading for the door.

Apparently he couldn’t argue with that.

With a lazy grin and a deep breath of Eddie’s fabric softener and hair gel, Richie fell out of consciousness. 

Eddie didn’t know why the hell he was nervous upon returning home. His brain had forced both the images of Richie sneaking out to head for home without a word and him dozing in Eddie’s bed like a drowsy great dane here and there throughout the day, both pestering him relentlessly. There was no ignoring how long it took him to fumble his keys into the lock. Richie didn’t (wouldn’t) know he'd crept around his apartment all morning, originally intending to let him sleep, but that stupid slack face had been his downfall. There was no way he could have left Richie in peace with a face like that.

Old habits.

Instead, once Eddie wrenched the door open, Richie was sprawled on the couch, open-mouthed and gargoyle-like, a book of Eddie’s open on his chest. He’d apparently had an incredibly uneventful day, filled with eventually getting up for some of the aforementioned cereal, snooping through Eddie’s things and finding nothing of interest,

“ _Not one gram of weed or even mildly freaky sex toy, Eds, come on. What are you really hiding?”_

and briefly meeting Jeffrey. No sign of Greg, which meant Richie was probably asleep when he left the apartment and narrowly avoided having his fingers dunked in a cup of warm water. Jeffrey had seemed not to mind his presence in the least, and had apparently even given Richie a crisp high-five regarding the news of his dropping out. Eddie wasn’t thrilled about this. But he wasn’t surprised. 

Much like a guilty pet owner, Eddie felt like spoiling Richie after leaving him alone at home all day. 

He took him to McDonalds.

Though still wary about fast food in and of itself, Eddie settled for a McChicken. He ordered two with a large fry to split, and Sprite for Richie, Coke for himself. He wasn’t sure how Richie managed to hold down this shit as regularly as he claimed with his weak stomach. Eddie might have his laundry list of alleged _sensitivities_ , but he could, for the most part, hold a meal down. He still got a little wheezy when he was anxious, but again. Working on it. 

For some reason, sitting across from Richie at a McDonald’s at 5 pm on a Friday was making his chest tight in a way it hadn’t been since he was a kid. 

Richie licked salt off his fingers and glanced up at him, hunched over his red plastic tray like a feral animal. “Hm?” 

“I asked if you’d seen Stan lately.” 

Richie shook his head, reaching for an actual napkin rather than the wrapper he’d previously been using to wipe his hands. Eddie didn’t know he knew the true function of a napkin. He grinned. 

“No, just Bill recently. I got a call from Ben a couple weeks ago, though, he was checking up. It was nice.” 

“Yeah, he called me too.” Eddie nicked a fry from Richie’s side of the fry pile. Ben sounded good, sounded like his classes were good, like his work was good, like he missed his friends. “I think he’s a little lonely all the way out in Nebraska.” 

“I’m sure he is.” He pushed up his glasses with a greasy finger. “He always had that big bleeding heart.” 

“It’s not the worst thing to miss your friends.” He lifted a shoulder, stirring the ice in his soda with his straw. Eddie stared at Richie’s half finished McChicken and rested his chin in his hand. “What the hell did you do all summer, anyway?”

“Raised hell,” Richie replied, automatically. He picked up his sandwich and forced Eddie’s view to his face. He paused, mouth open, realizing he was being watched, and lowered the sandwich for a moment. A sad little drop of mayo splatted on the paper of his tray. “I tried some summer classes, then this whole semester I was just trying to keep myself in school.” 

It was clear how that had worked out. 

Eddie leaned forward, chin in hand, elbow on table. “Weren’t you all brains in elementary school?”

“It’s elementary school, Eddie, it’s not harder to be smarter than a 5th grader.” 

“You did fine in high school, from what you said.” 

Richie slid a hand down his face. “Can we not talk about my dropping out for like, ten minutes?” He sat against the back of his chair, shifting stiff shoulders. “You’re really bumming me out here. Bad form on a first date, I must say, Kaspbrak.” 

Eddie had to roll his eyes, if only being defensive. He sat back, crossing his ankles under his chair. As much as he lived for pushing Richie’s buttons, he knew when it stopped being fun for both of them. And this was more about getting to the bottom of it. It didn’t make sense to him, but then again, it didn’t have to. He shouldn’t meddle no matter how badly he wanted to. “You took long enough to come up and visit here,” he redirected. 

“You said it yourself, you’re busy. I was busy, Ben sounds lonely but busy, Bev is absolutely up to her tits busy, Stan’s busy passing all his classes with flying colors, Mikey’s busy busting it down with the cougars down south, and Bill is busy bickering with each and every professor who says his writing is less than fucking brilliant.” 

Eddie’s eyebrows lifted slowly. “That doesn’t sound like Bill.”

“He’s a stubborn little fuck.” 

That did sound like Bill. Eddie pushed stray grains of salt around on his tray, idly swinging a foot. Richie watched him, thumbing the sides of his tray before picking up his paper cup to play with. 

Eddie didn’t look up. “What’s going on with that?” 

“Apparently he’s got some teacher up his ass and he’s considering some pipe dream novel.” Richie finally took a bite. “Ambitious stoner, he is.” 

“Stubborn stoner.” 

Richie puffed air through his nose and grinned around his sandwich before swallowing. “Right?” Ridiculous. They should have known Bill would turn out like that. Lion hearted if at a skewed angle. And still infallibly lovable. His voice dropped to that sincere level. “I love that guy.” 

“Yeah, so do I,” Eddie sighed gently. The image of Bill staggering down the street on his stupid massive bike at age eleven played briefly through his mind, warming a smile to his face. He hoped he was alright. 

Eddie glanced up at Richie, who quickly knuckled stray mayo-slathered lettuce off the corner of his mouth. “What were you even studying this year?”

He shook his head. “Everything.” He rolled his eyes, trying to forget the mess which was his schedule each of the pathetic four semesters he’d stuck out. “I am no closer to one single degree than I was the day I graduated junior high.” 

“What the hell do you mean _everything_?” 

“Oh, truly a jack of all trades am I. Master of none.” He flicked away a sad soggy fry from the pile. “I mean I nearly had several nervous breakdowns in several advisor’s offices and nearly induced a couple trying to get myself into a major that wasn’t absolutely insufferable or impossible.” He cringed for a moment, swallowing a gulp of Sprite. “I tried _theater_ , for fucks sake.” 

Eddie’s eyes lit up with a childlike glee at the thought, immediately perking up. Wasn’t that rich. “Richie Tozier: _Live_ .” He snickered to himself. “Jesus, I cannot imagine you in a fucking acting class. How the hell did they let you off leash in a fucking _acting_ class?” 

Richie wet his lips, an eyebrow slowly raising. There was a glint behind his glasses. 

Eddie felt that telltale stomach drop.

“Remember how I used to do those shitty impressions?”  
Eddie’s face pulled together with a light sense of horror. “How could I forget, Richie, you were _god_ awful-”

“People change, Edward, give a poor old boy some credit here and there.” an oddly accurate Transatlantic accent said. 

Eddie wheezed, face opening up like a flower before he rocked back in his chair and released one sharp little laugh which frightened an older man behind him. “ _Jeez._ ”

“Yeah.” Richie swept an arm. “I’ve never understood why you doubt me.”

“You got into acting classes at an accredited university by doing fucking _impressions_?” 

“And voices, it’s not just imitation. There’s a craft to it.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s a fucking _art form_.” Eddie gave him an incredulous crunch of the eyebrows paired with a wild little grin. 

This may have been one of Richie’s favorite Eddie expressions. 

Richie pressed his teeth into his bottom lip for just a second. He’d missed him. “I’m shocked none of my classmates offed themselves. I’m shocked my _professors_ didn’t.” He sat forward, elbows on the table as he gestured. “Picture it. You spend years—maybe decades—of your life devoted to theater. You have a degree, you might even have a fucking _doctorate_ . You are one of maybe thirty people on the planet who genuinely take theater seriously, you’ve made a life of it, and this _little shit_ —”

“You’re a massive shit, you’re a fucking post-breakup-cheap-mexican-food-binge shit, don't sell yourself short—”

“—crawls up on stage, wh—” Richie was losing it a little, a breathy laugh cutting him off which triggered the same in Eddie, who tried to continue for him.

“—little shit with these taped up glasses and the posture of a fucking 80 year old coal miner—”

“—and he announces himself, he says ‘I’m Rich Tozier, I’ll be auditioning for the part of MacBeth, I’ll be performing a monologue from _Hercules in New York_ ’—”

Eddie clutched at his chest, trying not to make a scene and swallowing down a gulp of sudden laughter. “An’ he—”

“He does the most flawless Arnold Schwarzenegger you’ve ever fucking seen.” 

Eddie shook his head, mock coughing into a fist to smother laughter. “No, you did not.” 

Richie leaned in, grinning like the devil. His voice dropped a clear octave, catching the most bizarrely accurate Austrian accent Eddie had ever had to witness. “ _You have struck Hercules_.” 

Eddie pressed his face into his hands, filling the next few moments with a valiant attempt not to crack up. Only a few hiccups escaped him for all his trying to silence himself. Richie sat back, grin slathered across his face, the buzz of what felt like a little nicotine high running through his brain. Eddie took a moment to recover, lifting a pink face from his hands and thumbing away a flick of moisture under one eye. “Oh my _god,_ ” he breathed. The man behind him glared again, trying to finish a Big Mac in peace. “I _hate_ that, I hate every ungodly second of that.”

“So did everyone else.” 

“Yeah, if I—yeah your professor probably could have blown his brains out.” 

Richie pointed a finger gun to his temple and pulled the thumb trigger, tipping his head to the side with the blast. 

Eddie shook his head at him in disbelief, cheeks pink. He did still have a couple freckles here and there, Richie couldn’t help but notice. He sipped his Sprite, grinning sideways around the straw. A comfortable silence settled between them for a moment as Eddie caught his breath, Richie not taking his eyes off him. His hair looked warm in the harsh lighting of a McDonalds after sundown. 

Richie set his cup down, releasing a breath. He glanced up to meet Eddie’s eyes. “And how’s _Eddie Kaspbrak: Soon to be Languishing in Suicidal Limbo in the Most Cramped Cubicle Imaginable For All Time?_ Tell me you switched out of _data analysis_ , for chrissake.” 

Eddie’s demeanor dropped a few degrees. He lifted a noncommittal shoulder. “It’s fine. Useful degree.” 

Richie figured as much. “What classes did you have today?”

Eddie watched him closely, preparing for an extreme overreaction. He shifted in his seat, oddly nervous. “First one was algorithms for data analytics,” he said slowly, careful about his tone. Keeping it casual. Light. He took a sip of his Coke to take the edge off.

Richie’s face fell, his gaze drifted off to the right toward empty space, appearing devastated. He very carefully returned to Eddie, lowering his head and his voice as he leaned over the table toward him. “This isn’t a cry for help, is it? Who’s forcing you to do this? Do I need to call someone for you? Is there a hotline?” 

Eddie pressed his lips together. “There’s no reason to shame me for going the practical route.” 

“ _Architecture_ is practical, still boring, but it's not half as fucking boring as fucking _business_ , Eds. Are you trying to trying to win some kind of competition for most listless young adulthood imaginable?” 

“It’s something I do well—”

“Eddie, you do loads of things well, business is something _everyone_ could do well, it's something rich jocks do well as an excuse to be on a college campus to chase sorority tail, come on.” 

Eddie’s nostrils flared. “I don’t need your approval on what I’m trying to do with my life.” 

“Fuck my approval, I’m talking about your _sanity_ here. You’re telling me the kid whose biggest dream was being a train conductor-slash-soapbox race champion who spent his free time running around causing general trouble with his shithead friends and plowing through the fucking river muck all summer is gonna be satisfied in an entirely beige, business-casual office watching porn on company time and jerking off under his desk just for the adrenaline rush of it?” 

“I despised the fucking river muck, actually.” 

“ _That’s_ what you chose to correct?”

“Well I’m not going to be fucking watching porn at work—”

“You’re going to want to, if only to garner some sense of risk and zest for life, Eds, it’s going to _kill_ you.” 

Eddie held up a stubborn hand, the other resting in the crook of the opposite elbow, arm across his chest. “I think you need to not fucking worry about it and think about your own career options here.” 

“I think I’m taking my time as a youth in America to figure out what I _actually_ wanna waste the rest of my years doing, and maybe you should be too.” The idea of Eddie ever dropping out was absolutely preposterous, but god, what a beautiful fantasy. Richie had an idea, knowing it was already shot down before he said it. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, pointing at Eddie. “How ‘bout this. You and I get an apartment near Bill’s, do some shitty jobs for very little money for a while, get so bored and fed up with life that we go on some ridiculous bender and fuck up our brains so bad we actually get in touch with what we want to do, then give _that_ a shot, how does that sound?” 

Eddie looked remarkably like a flabbergasted mother of three in the face for a moment. Sour and surprised, as if discovering one of her little darlings thought it funny to shit in her dress shoes before a job interview. “Richie, what the ever loving _hell_ did you smoke with Bill?.” 

“Mary Jane, Ed. Nothing special about it.” He squinted, tipping his head. “Maybe a little acid over the weekend.” 

“You’re unbelievable.” 

“I’m tired of booze. Zest comes in several varieties, you know.” 

The crumpling of empty McChicken wrappers and a lull in conversation signaled the end of dinner. Richie suggested it was time to put baby down for bed the moment Eddie dared yawn, and received a swift kick to the shin before Eddie helped him clear their table anyway. 

They padded out to Eddie’s car under the cover of darkness and the looming yellow glow of the golden arches. Eddie heard a lighter click when they stepped out into the parking lot. When he looked over, he caught Richie blowing smoke out of a corner of his mouth, his offending hand lowering a cigarette just slightly, almost to be sneaky about it without conviction, blue eyes widened slightly behind the glint of his glasses. 

_There was something alluring about it when Beverly smoked, but Eddie understood that was just the fact of the matter. It was some Hollywood fantasy, some dangerous bad-girl trope. It wasn’t Beverly herself, maybe Eddie knew her too well. More the movies telling him it should be alluring. He’d never really thought of her like that, hadn’t ever really had a crush on her like most of the other boys had, and part of him was proud of that. He felt mature for being able to draw that emotional boundary and stick with it, and it was nice to feel sure of something when it came to those things. Fuck knew the rest of it was a blur. Sometimes it really felt like the boys, Bev, and Eddie._

_Richie was visiting over a long weekend. By some stroke of luck, Beverly was in Derry the same weekend to take care of something she wouldn’t specify. Beverly met up with Eddie the moment she was free, the two of them met up with Richie while Mike and Stanley were busy with family dinners, homework, otherwise. Ben had already moved out west. Bill was stuck down in Bangor without a car to drive up to meet them. There was a for sale sign outside the Uris house._

_Eddie hadn’t been fond of the idea of exploring some dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere, the idea itself nearly sent him into an asthma attack when it was first suggested. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on why, and it unsettled him deeply enough to keep him uncharacteristically quiet while plans were inevitably made. He’d wheezed about it for a moment and sucked down a couple good breaths, this being in the first phase of attempting life without an inhaler, and silently agreed to tag along._

_They were about 16, most likely sophomores. The three of them ventured off the main drag more toward Mike’s old place. The final leg of the trek there put Eddie on edge, to say the least. Nearly a ten minute walk through an 8 foot corn field had put him momentarily in a strange meditative fear state, ignoring the way the husks felt like the weight of human arms lazily reaching out to brush his shoulders and head, boxing his ears._

_He was straight pissed when they’d breached the corn and grove of tangled trees and Beverly pulled out nothing but a pack of Marlboro Reds._

_“We came here to_ smoke _?”_

_Richie shrugged, clearly going with it. Eddie was convinced, if only for his own sake, that he was nursing an old nostalgia-induced crush on Bev and was doing this to impress. “We don’t have anything better to do.”_

_“What, we couldn’t have brought a ouija board or something? Done a seance? Smoking a fucking pack is not a site specific activity.” He clapped the back of his hand into his opposite palm._

_Beverly, whom he was catching up to in height by then, gave his hair a somewhat patronizing ruffle. “We made it this far and we don’t exactly have any tarot cards on us, what’s stopping us from just enjoying the scenery?” She gestured back toward the menacing, if a little sad looking, house behind them._

_Eddie could think of a laundry list of things that could stop (and maybe should have stopped) them._

_“Would you rather we do a seance? We can try and contact your long dead sense of adventure, Eds.”_

_Eddie could have glared hard enough to shatter the lenses of Richie’s glasses if he wanted to, arms wrapped around himself._

_It was Richie suggesting that Eddie was welcome to head back home through the field if he was uncomfortable which cemented his decision to stick it out._

_They’d settled in an upstairs room in a triangle, strategically avoiding the holes in the rotted floorboards. Beverly sat on a folded knee with the other tucked up to her chin, Richie sprawled, Eddie tucked up and cross legged. The world of smoking was something he knew he wasn’t going to step foot into. Whether his asthma was an elaborate (if painstakingly well-meant) lie to keep him what his mother considered “safe” (cruelly restricted) or not, just the sensation of struggling to breathe was still enough to effectively launch him into a panic. He was dearly hoping to grow out of it someday. That idea seemed somewhat within grasp at 16. So Eddie abstained, listening too closely to the sounds of coyotes singing behind the house and the shifting of the wooden boards. Settling, Mike would have said._

_He was quiet as Richie and Bev caught up, attentive when Bev flicked the lighter for him and he leaned into her space for a moment to light up. Eddie’s eyes had had a chance to adjust to the near full-moon lighting in the field, and the silver of the night had turned more amber once their cigarettes were lit._

_If asked to recall one word of the conversation between the three of them in the house that night, he would have been at an absolute loss. It was all images and feeling from then on out. The sweet scent of rot masked by the pressing pungency of cigarette smoke._

_Richie talked a lot as usual, filling both of them in with the usual charm and twinge of nuisance. He sounded remarkably upbeat, and Eddie could tell he was reassuring them that everything was fine in his new small town and high school was going swimmingly. Great friends, great grades, great times. Great sex, he made sure to point out, boinking lots of cheerleaders. Eddie was carefully picking apart fibs in his head, calling out when he saw fit._

_Beverly filled them in on anything exciting they’d missed since the last time they’d both seen her. Eddie couldn’t remember how long ago that had been, but it felt like nearly forever. She easily played off of Richie’s energy and offered them more than one exciting high school story. Eddie didn’t know when he stopped listening, but eventually the house grew nearly silent to him, his friend’s voices and hushed laughter buzzing around his ears._

_He jumped every time a bug whizzed by in his peripheral, whipping around to check the dark corners of the room a few too many times. His arms prickled with goosebumps, heart wishing for the comfort of the rest of their group in the room with them. That wouldn’t be as bad, he thought. And he’d have Stan to turn his nose up at smoking with him. Safety in numbers. Safety in seven. He found himself shifting closer to the now large form of Richie. He seemed to jump up several inches every time Eddie saw him, though he’d yet failed to fill out at all. Eddie didn’t exactly mind. He was already too busy catching up in height, which seemed more and more like a pipe dream every day._

_The sizzle of crisping tobacco when Richie inhaled was teasing at his ears, the glow from the cigarette catching on tiny details of his face in the dimness. Peach fuzz, sometimes. The structure of his face. His cheeks and jaw were starting to get a little definition. Beverly would flick her lighter from time to time and strands of his hair, unruly, would catch red gold. Eddie remembered too distinctly the outline of his throat when he tipped his head back, avoiding exhaling at either of them, smoke lifting from his lips, Adam’s apple jutting. His eyes were locked on for a while, he wasn’t sure how long, his chest plagued with a tightness he had a feeling had very little to do with the acrid stench in the little room or the heavy smell of decaying wood, but with his knees to his chest and his chin on his knees it didn’t feel all too exposing. He was allowed under the shield of darkness. Richie gestured with his cigarette hand a few times, grinning at something Beverly said, and Eddie recalled visually tracing his fingers and too heavily considering the grace with which he held the thing, perched between his upper knuckles. The bracelet of his wrist and the subtle twist in it, the little tendons that connected it to his forearm, the frame of his rolled jacket sleeves pushed above the elbow._

_He’d been quiet that night, if not content with watching them talk then too anxious at the thought of Richie addressing him directly while he was in that state. Richie did glance to him a few times, seeming as if he’d been making a point not to, and Eddie would find some interesting dust bunny or the like on the floor to pretend he’d been focusing on instead, quickly slapping on a pissy little expression to mask whatever puppy dog bullshit was going on when Richie wasn’t looking._

_He’d been bratty on the walk back to ice the cake, feeling distinctly like he was tending to some kind of illusion without understanding why. He’d pestered them both relentlessly as they ambled out of the gnarled bushes surrounding the house, loud about his complaints and concerns, of which there were many._

_The night had grown colder by the time they started the venture back through the stalks. The church bell toll at 11 and the sound of coyotes had admittedly stirred them each to different degrees, getting to everyone eventually. Beverly lead back, Eddie held onto the back hem of her jacket._

_Richie was last, he felt large behind Eddie, not threatening. Just overly lanky and all too present. Persistently there, if quieter than usual. He’d held Eddie’s right elbow with both hands. Every so often, the collar would slip off his shoulder from the downward tug of Richie’s grasp on the sleeve, and Richie would silently fix it for him, replacing his gentle hold each time. Eddie remembered the feeling of his heartbeat pulsing in his stomach the whole time. They’d whisper-chatted, Bev and Richie cracked a couple jokes to scare each other and Eddie walked with his eyes closed for thirty seconds at a time, trying to both commit the moments to memory and run away from experiencing them._

_Richie had dropped his grasp seconds before Eddie breached the corn, finding Beverly standing triumphantly in the ditch beside the road, dirty and grinning in cool moonlight._

Eddie’s heart was suddenly pounding in his throat, Richie starting at him like a little kid caught doing something wrong. He lowered his cigarette slowly, smoke trailing lightly from his fingers. “Sorry, Spaghetti Man. I’ll—”

“Put it out,” Eddie snipped. He unlocked the car, hands unsteady for the second time that afternoon. “If you wanna smoke, you can do it on the balcony when we get home. 

“It’s freezing,” Richie muttered, dropping the cigarette and stomping on it regardless. It wasn’t a protest, more of a complaint about a known fact. 

Eddie looked him up and down, eyes raking him, Richie still in a patterned shirt under nothing but a thin denim jacket. Bill had the nice kind with the sherpa lining, Richie’s looked like a weathered find pulled from the bin at Dig N’ Save. “You need a thicker jacket, you’re gonna catch your death in that stupid thing. You’re from _Maine_ , for fucks sake, don’t you have a parka on hand somewhere? I’ve got one at home, but fuck knows it wouldn’t fit you and those fucking licorice ropes you call arms.” 

Richie’s disappointed little expression bled slowly into a sideways little smile. “Fuck, I’ve missed you, you crazy little bastard.” 


	3. I CAN CALL YOU EDDIE AND EDDIE WHEN YOU CALL ME YOU CAN CALL ME OUT

**SATURDAY: Noonish**

Eddie’s nose wrinkled. “Dear sweet god, have you eaten anything with a remote sense of nutrition in the past week?

Richie looked up from his pleasant afternoon brunch, which consisted of the last bowl of now soggy cereal Eddie’s box on top of the fridge had to offer. “I have been living off cereal and McPoultry exclusively, my love, although nothing about that is out of the ordinary for me at this point in my life.” 

Eddie’s eyebrows sank, peering at Richie over the crumbs of his blueberry muffin. Richie assumed that was what he considered health food. He swiped his plate off the counter and tucked the stool back underneath it, turning to the sink with a sigh. “I need a shower.” He turned back to snag Richie’s empty bowl for him, pointing at him with the opposite hand. “ _ You _ need a shower.”

Richie gave himself the good ol’ lift-n’-sniff treatment, sadly realizing Eddie might have a point. Eddie had disappeared into his bedroom before Richie could tell him that, apparently having claimed dibs on first shower. Richie got up to rinse his spoon just as the water came on. 

A record was spinning by the time Eddie got out of the shower. He paused with his towel on his head, confused briefly as to where the hell the sound was coming from, before it hit him. He wished dearly Richie wouldn’t snoop through his things, but then again, who was he to deny Richie Tozier access to a milk crate full of records? That might fit the legal description of animal cruelty. 

He quickly toweled himself off, only catching his reflection for a moment to flatten down the damp spikes of hair his towel had fluffed up, and pulled on the clothes he’d stacked on one side of the sink. Laundry day clothes, sweatpants and an old t-shirt. 

The bedroom door was open to the living room, presumably so Richie could hear the music from the couch. Eddie hung his towel and crept into his room, dark now from the quickly settling overcast. He flicked on his lamp, picking up the sleeve left next to the record player on his desk.  _ The Very Best of Marvin Gaye.  _

They were a few measures into the first verse of “How Sweet It Is” when Eddie peered into the living room. 

Richie was washed in the warm glow of the table side lamp Eddie’s mother had bought for the apartment, reclining against the arm. His elbow was propped up, forehead resting on a few gangly fingers, one leg extended across the couch and bobbing in time. He easily dwarfed the couch. Eddie had to wonder how the hell he’d been able to sleep at all the past two nights, considering how crunched up he must have been. He wondered if he should offer him his bed tonight and take the couch. Then again, Richie hadn’t yet taken his offer to switch over once Eddie was out for the morning, so it must not have been too bad. 

Smiling, Eddie leaned against the doorframe, content with watching for a moment before Richie caught on. It wasn’t often one got to watch Richie thinking he was unobserved. Richie mouthed the words silently, eyes closed, feeling it out. It looked like a performance for no one but himself, his expressive face acting out something that lived only in his brain. Eddie wouldn’t ever hope to know what kind of a strange wasteland that had to be. He grinned stupidly, glad to catch him doing something ridiculous. He’d been waiting for it. Fuck knows there were enough opportunities for ridiculousness throughout his day. Catching him monologuing into the pillow the other night had been a similar gift, something that brought Eddie some inexplicable sort of joy he’d die before expressing out loud. 

Almost sensing him after a moment, Richie popped one eye open behind his thick glasses. Eddie stood perfectly still, catching his eye for a split second before Richie closed it again, pretending not to notice. He lifted his shoulders and started grooving with his hands, shifting on the couch to the beat. Eddie got to watch for only a moment more before he was finally acknowledged. Richie continued bopping his head in time, flicking a hand toward himself during a break in the lyrics. 

“C'mere.” He patted a thigh to invite Eddie into his lap on the couch, and Eddie shook his head, traitor grin refusing to go down. Richie opened an eye again, sitting up a little taller. “I know you know the words, it’s your record.” 

“I don’t listen to this one that much.” 

There was nothing performative or mocking in the little smile that brightened Richie’s face, making Eddie’s stomach swoop. “Get your little ass over here.” 

Eddie begrudgingly obliged, arguing to himself that he just wanted a seat on the couch, naturally. The ten foot walk to the couch felt long; it was almost a relief to settle onto a patch of unoccupied cushion. 

Richie continued rocking, unbothered. He didn’t budge, instead tapping his ankle against Eddie’s side. 

Eddie perched on the edge of the cushion, having to look over one shoulder to keep Richie in view. Incredible. “This is what you do with your spare time?” 

“Oh yeah.” He snapped his fingers, blinking his eyes open as he pointed at Eddie. The song was coming to a close. “You need some better fucking records though, this is your best one and it’s a goddamn  _ Best Of _ .” 

“It was a gift.” 

“You disgust me, Eddie Kaspbrak.” He leaned forward to push at his shoulder, finally bending his leg up to give him more room. “You don’t know the words?” 

“I know some.” The lamp behind him backlit Richie’s hair, catching warm tones in his otherwise jet black mop. Eddie felt a tangle in his chest. “When are you going to get a goddamn haircut? You’re starting to look like Bill.” 

The bastard winked. “I’m ten times more handsome than Bill, don't be cruel.” 

Eddie squinted at him, feeling a strange silence in the next moment he felt the need to fill. He sat forward to take Richie’s jaw in his hand, fingers pressing into his jowls. Richie paused for only a moment, blue blinking brightly at him as Eddie scrunched his nose at him. “When was the last time you shaved?” 

“Like three days ago.” 

Ouch. Eddie couldn’t help feeling what might be jealousy. “Three days?” It only took him three fucking days for that? He had a startlingly consistent shadow going on. Eddie needed maybe a week to get to that point, and it was still patchy at best regardless. 

Looking very slightly reluctant, Richie backed his head out of Eddie’s grip and rubbed his knuckles over his scruffy cheek. Recovering, he grinned. “Still struggling for peach fuzz, are we, Eddie?” 

He punched Richie’s shoulder without really intending to hurt and started to get up. Richie made a grab for the hem of his shirt to pull him back down. 

It startled a laugh out of him. “Let me go get you a fucking razor, you neanderthal.”

Richie did not let go, the toddler. “God, no, I don’t want your leg hair in my mouth.” 

Eddie cast a sneer over his shoulder. “Laughable that you assume I’d let you use  _ my  _ razor, let alone that I use a razor more than once.” He brushed Richie’s hand off and went to retrieve a fresh razor from a drawer in the bathroom, returning to press it into Richie’s palm. 

“You like your men clean shaven then?” He cocked a stupid eyebrow. “I’ll take note.” 

“Why don’t you take a shower first. You reek.” He lifted a lanky lock of Richie’s hair. 

Richie stood up with a symphony of cracking joints that Eddie couldn’t help but wince at. He would have ignored the fact that he was still quite evenly eye level with his collar bones, had Richie not taken him by the back of the neck, tilting his head forward to take a deep whiff of his hair. “And you smell– Jesus. What is that.” He released him and rubbed the back of his own neck, glancing up as if thinking. “God that’s just so familiar, I swear I’ve smelled that before–“ he snapped his fingers. “You use the same shampoo as your mother, that’s so sweet.” 

Eddie gave him a slightly less considerate sock to the shoulder and turned him toward the bedroom, face pinker than he cared to let him see. “For the love of God, just go get clean.” 

Richie went with a dumb little look and Eddie flopped down onto the couch, tipping his head back against the arm and sighing up at the ceiling. 

He heard Richie’s voice from the bathroom, muffled: “My god, you actually use women’s shampoo!” 

Eddie sat up quickly, immediately defensive. “Do you  _ know _ the kind of shit they put in your nasty three-in-one bullshit? You might as well be putting dish soap in your hair.” 

Eddie discovered that morning that, in addition to talking in his sleep, Richie sang in the shower. Part of him wondered if Richie was yucking it up because he knew he had Eddie as an audience now, but it was a little too easy to picture him belting out Buddy Holly perfectly alone in the comfort of his own shower. Eddie listened for only a moment. Not that Richie was very good, but then again, no one sang in the shower to sound good. 

He’d pulled out a textbook with the intention of finishing a Sahara-dry chapter on  _ Ethics in Economics _ , but he’d really only been staring at the page, unable to absorb a single word. He jumped once when he heard a hollow bonk and clatter as Richie presumably knocked a bottle off the shelf in the shower, followed by a pointed “ _ Shit– _ ,” a pause, humming, and finally the continuation of what Richie might consider singing. 

When the water cut off, Eddie returned his eyes to his book, not noticing he’d been gazing blankly at the bedroom door. He crossed one leg over the other, ignoring the sounds of Richie toweling off and rifling through his bag. He kept his eyes down when the door squeaked open, only looking up when Richie called his name. 

“Hey, Eds, what’s the laundry situation here?” 

Richie was not wearing pants. Eddie carefully observed this fact. He was currently in a t-shirt which looked as if it had been dug out of the very depths of a duffel bag shoved in the back of a closet, never unpacked from a long forgotten day trip, and a pair of admittedly gaudy striped boxers, half hiding behind the door. He’d shaved. 

“The laundry room’s in the basement.” He closed his book on his thumb. “Do you wanna throw your stuff in with mine?” 

“Yeah.”

Richie didn’t move. Eddie blinked twice. “Do you need pants?” 

“Yeah, actually, could I borrow some PJ pants or something?” His voice very nearly cracked. He ran his hand through his damp hair, making it stick up in a weird wet little clump on top of his head. 

“Yeah,” Eddie said, quickly setting his book on the coffee table and getting up. “Yeah.” 

Richie stepped back as he passed him, instinctively pulling his shirt down and wadding the hem in his fists. Eddie threw open a drawer and tossed through it, pulling out the first pair of flannel pants he came across and pitching them to Richie, eyes pointedly at face level. “Those work?” 

Richie shook them out and held them up to himself. The hem fell well above his ankles. “Oh they’ll do.” 

“Toss your shit in my basket, we can get some lunch and get everything washed.” He kneed his drawer shut, placing his hands on his hips. He found something interesting on the nearly blank wall as Richie stepped into the pants. 

He grinned as he pulled them up, tying the drawstring. “At least I’m prepared if there’s a flash flood.” He bounced on his toes, looking down at his bare ankles. “Do these even fit you? I thought you’d grown out of youth sizes.” 

“Do you think you could go 24 hours without making some wayward dickhead comment about my height if your life depended on it?”

“Not a chance.” 

“Put your shit in the basket, Trashmouth.” 

“Hey hey hey that’s  _ enough _ , holy shit.” 

Eddie closed the detergent slot with a tap. “What?” 

“You just used half a bottle of Tide on one load, isn’t that overkill?”

“I’ve smelled you,” Eddie said, “you think bar soap is overkill.” 

Richie hopped down from the washer he’d been perched on, picking up a little striped shirt from a haphazard lost-n-found pile on a nearby folding table and examining it. “I’m hurt, Eddie. Your words wound me. Calling me a smelly little man, how dare you? And when I’m all fresh and clean thanks to Kaspbrak approved bath products, too.” He clicked his tongue, shaking his head disapprovingly. 

“Someone had to say it.” He set his detergent back in his laundry basket and straightened up, his hands on his hips. In truth, Richie really only looked like he might smell bad if you got too close to him. Eddie didn’t altogether mind his cologne or deodorant or whatever it was he smelled like. Not that he’d ever let him know that. He paused, trying to soften the blow of a sudden change in conversation, but it went with little grace despite his efforts. “So, you wanna go to a get together tonight?”

“A  _ get together? _ ” Richie paused, smirked, setting the shirt back down. “Are you asking me to a party, Eds?” 

“No, it’s a get together. It’s a couple friends and some drinks, it’s no big deal.”

“The way you say that makes it sound like it’s actually kind of a big deal to you but you don’t want me to know that. Is that the case?”

“It’s an incredibly small deal, it’s a couple of my friends, they wanted to meet you.” 

Richie’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you talk to your little friends about me?” Richie leaned down to rest his elbows on the table, propping his chin in both hands. “I’m flattered, I’m deeply touched.” 

“They hear about you alright,” he said, monotone. Eddie leaned against a washer across from him, keeping his face level. “You wanna go or not? It’s at Julie’s, she lives right across the parking lot. We can walk.” 

“So we can get sloshed?” 

“We are not getting  _ sloshed _ , but yeah.” 

“Drink and meet your friends.”

“Yeah.”

Richie gave him a wicked grin. “How could I ever say no to an offer like that? It’s a date.” 

That evening saw the two of them dressed in clean clothes, padding across the parking lot toward building 3. Eddie had donned a button down (one of his “casual” ones) tucked into his jeans, Richie had picked a now clean Ramones shirt (now smelling forcefully of Eddie’s detergent), an open button down, and his jean jacket, buttoned for the walk over. Eddie had his cuffs rolled once to his wrists and a bottle of wine in hand. 

“It’s sweet of you to bring wine. Whose parents are you meeting?” 

Eddie cast him a look, confused. “What?” 

“You look like some plucky kid some girl is bringing home for Thanksgiving for the first time. It might be the little belt, you look so– conservative. You look like you’ve been in a committed relationship for some time now and you might just ask Pops if you could finally put a ring on his dear Sally this Christmas Eve, not New York state’s hottest bachelor about to tear up a party with the best wingman God could give him.” 

“And you look like a washed up comedian about to slump off to snort coke with a bunch of other nobodies after a bad audition for SNL, fuck off.” 

“At least roll up your sleeves. It’s too obvious they’re too long for you, make it look cool.” Richie reached over and started to roll up one of Eddie’s sleeves for him, prompting another sigh. 

“Who am I trying to impress, Richie?” 

“Who  _ are  _ you trying to impress? Or do you just dress like this on the reg?” He patted his back and moved to the other side of him to do the other sleeve, rolling it up just above the elbow. Eddie switched the wine to his other hand to give him room. Richie nudged him. “There some girl at this party?” 

“There will probably be lots of girls, but no, not in the way you’re meaning.”

“ _ Lots _ of girls, huh?” 

“And you’ll bother absolutely none of them, you got it?” Eddie looked at him with such utter seriousness that Richie had to laugh. 

“Dude, come  _ on _ , why are you so antsy about this? I’ll be a perfect angel, as always. They’ll love me.” He batted his eyelashes, examining Eddie’s face. “Or is  _ that _ what you’re worried about?” 

“I’m pretty confident my friend’s standards are a little too high for that, so no.” He started up the steps of the building, arm free once Richie was done fiddling with it. He reminded himself that he wouldn’t and couldn’t mind if that happened, which it wouldn’t. He blocked the sudden invasive image of Richie with one of his friends in his lap on Julie’s couch, trying not to cringe at the thought. “Cmon.” 

“Smart girls. Then there’s nothing to be worried about, buck up. You look all chalky and nervous.” He patted his back again. 

Eddie hoped to fuck Richie was just teasing about that last part. 

They ended up on the second landing. Richie stuffed his numbing hands into his pockets as he followed down a little hall, lit yellow by a buggy overhead light. Eddie’s hair glowed golden brown around his head from the back, shirt so evenly tucked into the back of his pants. He’d brought his wallet, Richie noticed, for no real reason, seeing the rectangle outlined in his back pocket. Eddie paused in front of a mint green door with a cheap little fall wreath hanging on a temporary hook. “Julie,” he said as Richie caught up, unbuttoning his jacket. “This is Julie’s apartment, I’ll introduce you to everybody else.” 

Richie shrugged. “I got it. No prob.” He gave Eddie a look as he knocked. “Why did you do up all your buttons, you look stuffy as hell.” 

“Will you leave me the hell alone for two seconds?” 

“C’mere.” 

Eddie begrudgingly turned toward him as Richie guided his shoulder to face him, tipping his head back with a scowl as he undid his top button for him. 

“At least undo one–“

The door creaked open and Richie froze as a short girl with thick bangs appeared, red cheeked and grinning. He quickly slung a very casual arm around Eddie and threw on a smile. 

“Eddie!” She called, going up on her toes to hug him around the neck. Richie dropped his arm quickly as Eddie bent down. Eddie returned with a little squeeze and handed her the wine. 

“I brought a little–“

“You’re really too much,” she said, sounding genuinely touched, if a little drunk. She patted Eddie’s cheek, “God, you’re sweet,” then turned her gaze to Richie. “And you must be Richie?” 

“In ze flesh, mademoiselle,” he said. He could feel Eddie wither beside him. 

Julie beamed and went in for a hug: Richie had to bend down considerably, eyes meeting Eddie’s for a second over her shoulder. When she pulled back she looked Richie up and down, seeming to hum to herself before patting him twice on the chest, probably a little harder than intended. “Tall,” she noted, seeming pleased, before grabbing the sleeve of his jacket to drag him inside.

_ Drunk?  _ He mouthed to Eddie over his shoulder. 

Eddie tipped his head to the side and followed.  _ Tipsy.  _

The tiny apartment (which was modeled and furnished almost exactly like Eddie’s) was warm and crowded with bodies, and Richie quickly noticed they were some of the only guys there. Multi colored Christmas lights lined the ceiling where it met the walls, casting a rainbow of shadows and highlights onto the kids spattered around the place. It smelled strongly of weed, although the air was clear and free of smoke. A radio sung from some unseen corner, a chunky television functioning as a shelf for unwanted and long forgotten drinks. 

He received a few glances as Julie dragged him toward the kitchen, hearing a small chorus of girls call Eddie’s name once he crossed the threshold and became visible to the rest of the partygoers behind Richie. He could practically feel Eddie blush and beam, lifting a polite hand. 

“Eddie brought wine!” Julie informed a group gathered around the kitchen counter, sipping from various cups and bottles. “And Richie, this is Richie.” She patted his arm.

“Richie!” they repeated, much in the same way they’d greeted Eddie. He received a few names he knew he wouldn’t remember right away, a handshake, and a couple hugs. His hair was ruffled, jacket plucked at, glasses commented on. While he really didn’t think they were that flattering, he accepted the compliment anyway. He and Eddie were offered shots, which Richie accepted and Eddie declined in place of a glass of wine. 

The apartment was small, and not altogether difficult to fill, but it was most definitely full. “This is a  _ party _ , Eds,” Richie said out of one corner of his mouth, clinking his shot glass against Eddie’s plastic cup. ‘A get together’ his ass. 

Eddie shook his head with an eye roll and Richie knocked back his shot. Shots and girls counted as a party, even among just friends. 

“You guys have known each other since  _ grade school _ ?” 

“It’s a wonder we haven’t killed each other yet,” Eddie said, face feeling warm, body feeling pleasantly heavy. 

He’d caved on a shot around 10 minutes prior as Richie downed his second. They were perched (sprawled, in Richie’s case) on the couch next to Julie, who had her feet in Eddie’s lap. Ronnie and her boyfriend were snuggled up on the coffee table, each sipping at a beer. Nancy was sitting on the arm of the couch next to Richie, sipping her drink and casting him a little glance every so often. 

Richie threw an arm over the back of the couch on Eddie’s side, swirling a mixed (with what, he wasn’t sure) drink in his other hand. “He’s had the pleasure of knowing me since childhood, yes.” He took a long sip. “And he’s going to be grateful when I take off and he’s one of the little people I can’t, for the  _ life _ of me, forget.” He aimed a wink in Eddie’s direction and received a little scowl which quickly blurred into a grin. He passed his cup to an empty handed Eddie, who drank deeply from it and grimaced. 

“What do you wanna do, again?” Nancy asked.

“Professional annoyance,” Eddie chimed in, earning a few scattered laughs. 

Richie raised his cup as Eddie passed it back. “Not too far off, good buddy.” He turned to Ronnie, who’d asked. “Most likely something involving entirely too much talking. I wanted to do ventriloquism as a kid–”

“He’s  _ shit _ ,” Eddie pointed out, patting Julie’s shin, who snickered.

“And I am shit,” Richie admitted, “but I did have a job at my school’s radio station for a while last year. Wasn’t so bad, disk jockeying. If all I have is a staggeringly charming personality to go off of, I might as well make money off of it, right?”

“He needs an audience to survive,” said Eddie. “Julie, what was in that?” 

“You want one?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

Julie ruffled Eddie’s now increasingly messy hair and clambered off him to head to the kitchen to make him a drink. Richie was going to need another shot soon, he could feel a good buzz going. Eddie seemed to be in a good place.

Eddie felt like he was in a good place. He was going to slow down after this next drink, considering he knew Julie liked to make them strong, in part because she loved when Eddie caused trouble for himself, but he still wanted to enjoy himself. He usually had a pretty alright time at Julie’s little get togethers, save a few exceptions when he’d been having a bad night anyway, but this really wasn’t so bad. He glanced up to Richie, who was enigmatically nodding at something Ronnie’s boyfriend had said. 

He really was a hit so far. Nancy was clearly encroaching on his personal space on the arm of the couch, but he seemed to hardly notice. Eddie grinned stupidly at that, blaming the booze. He was a smiley drunk. He was maybe a little resentful that Richie could be three drinks in and seeming no more than buzzy while he was traipsing toward drunk, but so it goes. Richie had a number of pounds on him from sheer height, so it wasn’t much of a surprise. His shirt looked deeply purple in the strange lighting of the room, and Eddie thought he looked nice in purple. His hair looked a little purple, lit with reds and yellows, eyes oddly electric blue. 

Richie was automatically interesting to Eddie’s friends due to the fact that the two of them seemed so different yet so close. Ronnie had admitted to him earlier that she’d been picturing a Kaspbrak Karbon Kopy or something of the like, and he knew, with a little hurt, that that meant some weedy, nerdy, little accounting major from some neighboring college. Not the smartass, wisecracking, and quite frankly infuriatingly charming beast that was Richie Tozier. Julie had commented multiple times on his height, which Eddie had to pointedly remind her that he  _ knew _ . What he didn’t understand was why he seemingly wasn’t allowed to have tall friends, even if he was nearly the tallest among his immediate group at college (not counting Ronnie’s quite frankly boring boyfriend.) That comment was a little grating, but Julie was a little drunk and, admittedly, had a type. Her last boyfriend was 6’4. 

Eddie calmly watched Richie and Ronnie discuss comedians for a moment (and the uncle she had who was apparently gaining a little traction with comedy in LA), taking a second to breathe. It was a little crowded for his tastes, but once they’d claimed the couch and created a tight little circle, it felt a little better, even if the air was a little stuffy. He’d met a few extended friends of Julie’s earlier, but was glad to be around the girls he was a little more familiar with. 

“Yeah, I feel like I’m going to end up lighting out to Cali someday, if I’m honest,” Richie admitted. 

This was news to Eddie. His eyes focused quickly, looking up at him. 

“New York can’t handle you?” Ronnie asked. 

“The entire east coast can’t handle me,” Richie said, voice deepening. Ronnie and Nancy laughed, Ronnie’s boyfriend sipped his beer and looked increasingly bored.

Julie returned a moment later, traipsing over a gaggle of kids gathered on the floor. Someone had turned on SNL on the TV. “So, Richie,” she started, sitting down half in Eddie’s lap and handing him a solo cup. He sniffed it and made a concentrated effort not to recoil. Strong. Julie continued, “there’s one question I think we’ve all been dying to ask all night.”

Eddie felt his heart crawl up into his throat, stomach sinking simultaneously. He glanced to her quickly, ready to shut this down if she crossed some kind of line, face half hidden behind the rim of his cup.

Richie looked like he might just break a sweat, pointedly refusing to look directly at Eddie. He looked over him to Julie as he finished off his drink, wetting his lips. “Have at it.” 

She sank her teeth lightly into her lip, sitting up a little straighter. Eddie placed a hand against her back to steady her. 

“What was Eddie like as a kid?”

Richie burst into relieved laughter and Eddie felt himself deflate, tension bleeding out of his spine and a different kind sinking into his temples. 

“Oh boy oh boy, I  _ never _ pictured myself with  _ this _ opportunity,” he said, nothing short of gleeful. He clapped his hands together and rubbed his palms. 

Eddie made to swat at him without spilling his drink and Richie fended him off, blocking his arm with an elbow. “Don’t  _ even _ try–” 

“Finish your drink before you come for me, Eds, do yourself a favor.” 

“You’re gonna wanna be drunk when I start talking about the giant headache  _ you _ were as a kid, Tozier.”

Richie locked eyes with him and snagged Eddie’s drink cleanly from his hand and started chugging, throat bobbing with a quite frankly sickening speed as Eddie shouted and scrabbled with him. He got more than halfway through before breaking for air and giving Eddie an in to snatch his drink back, pink and laughing about it without meaning to. “I’m not coming to your rescue if you hurl.” 

He held up a hand to Eddie, face considerably ruddier than it had been a minute ago. “Lemme just tell you guys the fucking lobster box story, that’s honestly all you need to know about this little freak as a kid.” 

Richie Tozier looked like a lot of things, but the moment he got drunk, he looked absurdly like the Lanky White Dad at the Barbecue who Absolutely Cannot Dance but will Die Trying Anyway. 

Julie had resigned herself to slumping at Eddie’s side, idly chatting and entertaining various guests who stopped by to talk with her. She’d gotten a few shots deeper, yet had still managed to mother a girl who had broken a bottle in the kitchen and clean up the mess while hammered. Eddie was still riding a nice buzz, but Richie had made it clear earlier that he wasn’t walking home in anything resembling a straight line. 

His Buddy Holly impression had killed when “Everyday” had come on, and he’d been invited to the middle of the living room floor to dance shortly after. He was truly a sideshow, limbs and hair everywhere, glasses barely hanging on. Eddie idly kept count of how many times he had to push them back up his dumb long nose to avoid them flying off his face. He sang loudly and with true abandon, encouraging anyone and everyone else to do the same. More than once he grabbed someone’s idle hand to spin them into dancing, infectious. The air was practically thumping in the apartment; if Julie wasn’t friends with the RA for her building, their asses would have been busted an hour ago. Richie had joined hands with another one of the guys at the party, some biology major Ronnie knew from a GenEd class, and was flailing him around, both of them looking dumb drunkenly over the moon about it. Nancy had cut in at some point as well, and Richie had badly lead a very clumsy and over exaggerated ballroom routine with her, which she looked more bewildered with than excited about. It hadn’t quite made sense against the backdrop of some 80’s pop hit, but Eddie thought it would have been fun anyway.

Eddie was content with watching, feeling warm and solid on the couch, foot muffled tapping on the carpet. He’d gotten himself a glass of water, having felt a little overheated at one point. A few people had left to go outside and smoke, which helped the congestion in the room. 

Julie muttered something to him and he tipped his ear to her, asking her to repeat. 

“I like him.”

Eddie smiled. “Yeah, I do to.” 

“You sure do.” 

He lifted his head to look at her properly, curious. She offered him a smug glance. She nodded toward Richie. “What?” Eddie asked.

She shrugged, an easy grin sliding across her face. 

Eddie glanced up and saw a big paw of a hand cocked in his direction, an arm leading up to Richie now only in his black t-shirt. His hair hung curly in his face, skin practically glowing. His over shirt was tied around his waist, jacket long cast off somewhere. 

“You’re putting yourself in a corner, Baby, c’mon. Let’s dance.”

Eddie shook his head, firm. “I’m perfectly content watching you make an ass of yourself out there on your own, thanks. And you’re doing a spectacular job at it, by the way.” 

Richie shook his head, sloppy with it. He plucked at the sleeve of Eddie’s shirt. 

“Getup,” Julie insisted, pushing at his shoulders as he took on more of her weight. “Go look stupid, I loveitwhen you do that.” 

Eddie gave her a little look, but Richie was insistently pulling him to his feet by one arm. 

“Come dance with me,” he whined, sounding like a bothersome little kid. He pouted which didn’t help, swinging Eddie’s arm. Eddie could tell he was laying it on thick on purpose. 

“I really can’t take you anywhere,” Eddie breathed, smiling despite himself, shins bumping the coffee table lightly as Richie urged him on. His cheeks felt sore. Smiley drunk. He glanced to one side of the room without knowing why, finding a few different pairs of eyes on them. “Rich–”

The song switched and Richie lit up, guiding Eddie around the table by his elbow. Rick Astley. “Eds, you love this song.”

He did love this song. Richie usually made fun of him for it, but he did. He did not love dancing. “I’m not drunk enough for this.”

“I am, and I’m forcing you to have fun, Eddie. Where would you be without me?”

Eddie distantly wondered for a moment why the hell he said his name so much and why he always noticed. Richie gripped his hand, backing up with a stupid jazzy little gait, snapping the fingers of the opposite hand. “You know the words.”

“No.”

Richie sang anyway, acting out the song. He sounded hoarse, voice tired from entertaining all damn night. It struck Eddie somehow: Richie never lost his voice. Eddie stood with him, arm limp as Richie swung it around and used it as a prop for his own little exercise, sweaty and having what seemed to be the time of his life. He turned the two of them around and Eddie caught a glimpse of Julie, sitting with her knees up to her chin with an easy grin. She gave him a thumbs up and he gave her a confused look, back straightening when Richie took him momentarily by the waist to toss him around again. He lost sight of the couch as Nancy settled down on it. Richie stumbled and Eddie caught him under an arm, pulling him up to meet his eyes. “You did get yourself sauced, didn’t you?”

“ _ Oh  _ I do love that word,” Richie slurred. “Eddie, your friends are alright. Gotta admit, was a ‘lil worried this would blow.” 

“Don’t you know by now not to doubt me?” 

Richie did look nothing short of silly, his over shirt slowly coming untied around his waist, pupils big in the dim light, grin at an angle and filled with nothing short of joy. Eddie reached down and tugged on the sleeves for him so he wouldn’t lose it, and Richie threw his arms over Eddie’s shoulders. Eddie finished out the song with him, not really dancing, just moving, but enjoying himself a little nonetheless. It was hard not to with Richie’s infectious energy spiking so close to him. Richie was getting winded by the end of it, holding Eddie’s shoulders heavily and looking down at him with suddenly tired eyes. “Christ.” 

“You about ready to go?” 

The song wound down, and Richie nodded a few times, pausing when the next came on. It occurred to Eddie that SNL must have ended, the TV was dark again, it must be late. “ _ Fuck _ , Eddie, I  _ love _ this song.” 

Paul Simon, “You Can Call me Al.” Fuck, he did too, but they should get going. They had a record player at home anyway. Eddie looked at him, weary and content at the same time. “Grab your coat, cmon.” He patted his arm. 

“I love this song,” he muttered, obliging nonetheless. 

Julie saw Richie pitching himself toward her and produced his coat from somewhere and held it out to him. He wrapped her in a big bear hug. Eddie heard her giggle as she was smothered by his gargantuan arms. Eddie carefully stepped around the coffee table to say his goodbyes to her as well, getting a few hugs from the other girls and a thump on the shoulder from Ronnie’s boyfriend. He noticed Nancy giving Richie a squeeze out of the corner of his eye. Julie thanked him again for the wine, gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek, and walked them to the door. 

Once outside, Richie was shivering almost immediately. His back was damp with sweat which immediately caught a chill in the cold October air. He struggled with his over shirt and Eddie straightened it out for him, guiding his arms through the sleeves and doing the same a moment later with his jacket, which Richie buttoned again. Eddie walked closely next to him, keeping him steady. He himself wasn’t near drunk enough to stumble, just drunk enough to feel warm in the cold air and light in the head. “Where do I know that song from?”

Richie muttered a few lyrics to himself. It was ending as they descended the stairs, audible from the floor below outside. “Paul Simon.”

“Yeah.”

Richie thought about it, swinging his arms. He linked his left with Eddie’s right.“God, tippamy tongue.” 

Eddie glanced up, catching a glimpse of the spattering of stars on the blue velvet of the sky. There weren’t many visible, but a few landmark constellations were still visible here and there. A thought struck him suddenly, clear and crisp as a summer day.

Eddie’s voice raised a little in pitch, inquisitive. Richie could feel a little sense of teasing in it, but it wasn’t mean. “Do you remember that tape I made you before you moved away? You still have that thing?” 

Richie’s brain was a little muddled, but the memory flooded back into the forefront of it suddenly. Yeah, he did still have it. He was 14 when his family finally got the fuck out of dodge, and he still had it. It may be in a box somewhere, but it was definitely in a box he’d taken with him to college. You don’t leave those sorts of things at home, they follow you, even if you never touch them. Move them from drawer to drawer, hardly thinking about them, but knowing they were too important to let go of and too heavy to dig into except when deep cleaning or drunk. Like birthday cards. Everyone has that drawer. 

He suddenly remembered sitting among the boxes of his new house when he’d moved, boney knees to his chest, walkman in his lap. The image was clearer than his own vision before him. His bed hadn’t been set up yet, a sad pile of boards and mattress, but he had a rug. He was sitting on the rug, disembodied headboard at his back, the first time he’d listened all the way through. He tore apart the lyrics to every song on the little 8 track, scrutinizing the lyrics. He remembered writing some of them out despite knowing them by heart, reading them over later looking for clues. Morse code of some feeling between measures. He was sure he didn’t have that particular notebook anymore. The stupid tape made him feel safe from and close to Derry at the same time, even just looking at it. Yeah, he still had it. 

_ Jesus, Derry. _

He’d known then it was some gentle form of self abuse, but he’d gladly chase that high again. He got a certain kick out of it. The pleasant warm feeling in his face when he caught onto a particular line about love or longing or even best friends, allowed to be privately embarrassed in the comfort of his own room. Eddie’s face and voice weren’t there to contradict the sentiment then, it was just him and Marvin Gaye and David Bowie left to figure it out among themselves; sheer fantasy. 

You know how kids make believe. 

“I think so, it’s probably somewhere.” His voice was a little airy, distant.

He pulled himself out of recollection to catch Eddie’s glance, a grin working its way onto his face. He was quick with a comeback to smother it, heart suddenly kicking up in his chest. “You cried like a baby when I left, you remember that?” 

Eddie had to roll his eyes. His angle of that memory came rushing at him. 

_ He hadn’t thought too much about what to put on the actual tape. He’d had songs ready at the forefront of his mind. Those came easy, he knew plenty of songs that made him think of Richie, he knew a bunch he was sure would make Richie think of him, no matter how far away he was. Easy. The difficult part came in the scrawling of the title on the side of the case.  _

_ He was pinned to his desk chair, marker in hand, spinning it between his fingers.  _

To: Richie

From: Eddie 

_ was the most obvious choice, but it felt too much like something written on a tag at a very business casual office Christmas party. He knew the heart of it was in the fact that he’d sat down and made a tape for him, but the icing felt weirdly integral. He didn’t wanna come off too sappy.  _

Richie’s Mixtape (by Eddie)

_ was also out. The last tagline felt a little desperate, like he was worried Richie would forget who made it for him. Forget him. _

_ He shook out a stiff wrist and carded his fingers through his hair, leaning back in his chair to stare idly at the ceiling. He tossed his marker straight up with the intent to catch it, instead nearly getting skewered in the eye and nearly jumping out of his chair. After recovering (and a mandatory check around his room to endure no one had somehow seen that), he tried to put himself in Richie’s headspace to come up with something, but quickly pulled out. Too horrifying to imagine.  _

_ A third attempt. This time he went for it and scrawled on the little title line with his marker, despite his heart racing in his chest. He’d look like a real asshole if he had to scratch it out and try again. _

Trashmouth Jam Sesh 

_ He sat back and looked at it. Capped his marker and let it clatter to the desk. That worked. It was done. He started to get up before he could think twice, then thought twice. A little angry with himself, he leaned back over his desk and snagged his marker, flipping the stupid thing onto its face.  _

_ On the back of the tape, he marked a smart little dash and his name.  _

–Eddie

_ Enough.  _

_ One more thing.  _

_ He scribbled in the year above it. He didn’t know. Maybe Richie would grow up to be sentimental. He didn’t know why he hoped so.  _

_ He’d been glad he’d given the damn thing to Richie a few days before he left, pressing it into his hand before they’d all disbanded for the night after a day of their usual nonsense. The weight of him leaving wasn’t  _ as _ heavy then. He couldn’t imagine the fiasco if he’d waited till he was piling into his car with all his measly belongings. That might have induced some toddler tears.  _

_ What a pathetic little scene that had been anyway. The six of them having abandoned their bikes for a moment to see him off, a couple hugs, one armed or otherwise. Eddie hadn’t bawled or anything, but he did let slip a couple fat tears when the car started off. Bill had squeezed him around the shoulders and he’d quickly fended off Stan’s attempt to fluff up his hair. He’d been misty eyed as well, he had no room to tease.  _

_ Bev’s departure was rough. Bill wasn’t any easier, but he wasn’t going as far. But they all knew tackling the idea of high school split up was petrifying in a whole new way. The summer before Eddie had gone through inhalers like a coke fiend goes through cash.  _

Eddie gave him a withering look. 

“Those were tears of joy. I hadn’t experienced silence so complete since long before I’d met you.” 

Richie snorted at him, squeezing his arm as they approached the stairs of Eddie’s apartments. “You sentimental little piece of shit.” 

He would have fended him off had they not been about to venture up a staircase, which could end badly for Richie in this state. He held tight to him to give him support“You probably listened to that thing day in and day out when you left.” 

“ _ I’ll _ never tell,” he said, voice high and seeming to be aiming for that of a little old woman. Possibly the Queen. 

They worked their way up the two flights in a comfortable silence then, Eddie feeling content in a way he never did after those little parties. He always had fun, sure, but meandering back to his apartment alone and clambering into bed always left him laying on his back, staring at the ceiling, feeling oddly empty.

He fit his key into the lock and the two of them tumbled over the threshold, a mess of shushes and slaps on the arm. Richie quickly flopped down on the couch on his stomach, and Eddie sat down pointedly on the backs of his knees, making him groan, disgruntled. Richie mumbled at him to get off as he powered through an attempt to roll onto his back, promptly shutting up when Eddie collapsed sideways between the back of the couch and Richie’s side. He kicked off his shoes before they could get too comfortable. Richie rolled so he could breathe and so they’d both fit, facing out as Eddie settled behind him.

Eddie was oddly comfortable. His last drink was fully settling in, leaving him dizzy in a pleasant way. He tossed an arm over Richie, who just barely tensed, cupped his shoulder. 

“You were just the bell of the ball, huh?” he mumbled, somewhat into Richie’s shoulder. 

“Are you surprised?” Richie closed his eyes, daring for a moment to drink it in. Eddie was physically hot behind him, little body generating more heat than usual from the booze. It melted the chill of the evening right off him. He squeezed his eyes shut as Eddie patted his arm. 

“I think Nancy was trying to make a pass at you.”

Richie laughed dryly, throat feeling a little scratchy. “Oh really? Should I go back for her number tomorrow?” 

“I think your dancing properly scared her off,” Eddie snorted. 

He glanced over his shoulder, unable to really see anything. Eddie was more a physical presence than a visual one at this point, he had to trust he wasn’t making it up and talking to himself. He couldn’t be that drunk. “Long as my dancing didn’t scare you off.”

Eddie lifted his arm and dropped it over him again, something like an exasperated shrug. “I am wedged between you and a couch currently, so it couldn’t have done that bad of a number on me.”

Richie felt a wide, stupid grin tug at his cheeks. His head felt filled with cotton candy, arms weights as they draped over the couch cushions and spilled onto the floor. “Good,” he muttered, half pressing his face into the couch cushions, muffling the word, eyes closing, drinking it in. “Good.” His brain felt slow, heart fast. 

Another easy silence laid over them like a light blanket, settling them both in to the warm evening glow of the apartment. Only a string of Christmas lights lit the room, strung up on the wall behind them. It was cozy without being oppressive: cool enough that Richie was no longer sweating, warm enough to ease the chill of the night. Eddie Space Heater Kaspbrak really topped it off. Richie’s chest felt full and light at the same time, pulse steady yet in his throat. Eddie sighed deeply and Richie felt his breath stir the hairs on the back of his neck, making them stick up. His pulse jumped a little there. 

“‘Member that stupid joke? Withat song?” Sleep tugged at his voice. 

Eddie hummed, just acknowledging that he was still awake and listening. 

“The Paul Simon song.” 

Eddie was quiet for a moment, words coming slowly. “‘You Can Call Me Al.’” He sighed lightly. “I put it on your tape, yeah.” 

“Cuz I heard the lyrics wrong–”

“‘N you always used to sing it at me, yeah.” Something a little like a laugh came out of him. “What was it?” 

Richie remembered with odd clarity despite the fuzz in his brain and years between him and the memory. “I can be your bodyguard, if you’ll be my long lost pal–”

“No, it’s I can be your long lost pal.”

“Yeah. Then the whole–” he snickered– “I can call you Eddie, and Eddie, when you call me, you can call me out.” 

Richie could feel Eddie’s grin against his shoulder. His stomach swooped. “Yeah, cuz you thought it was ‘Eddie’ not ‘Betty’ when you first heard it, yeah.”

“I was det-devastated when my dad corrected me.” 

“I bet.” Eddie’s voice was low. Richie felt it rumble in his chest against his back, firmly on cloud nine. 

“Still applies.” 

“Hm?” 

“Eddie, you can call me out.” 

“Don’t I know it.” 

Richie hadn’t noticed he’d fallen asleep until he woke up. His eyes felt heavy and a little crusty when he blinked them open, hearing a key scrabbling in the lock. Eddie sat up abruptly behind him, rigid, which made him groan in the back of his throat, disturbed, still drunk. 

Jeffrey and Roommate 2 stumbled in through the door. They whisper-yell greeted Eddie, who waved them off and told them to get to bed in a gravelly, tired voice. Richie rolled a little to look up at him, finding him looking a little embarrassed and little overheated. His cheeks were red and splotchy, dark hair sticking up on one side, damp along the hairline. His gaze dropped to Richie as the other boys made their ways to their respective rooms, doors shutting heavily behind them, and Richie tucked his arms to his chest. Eddie’s dark eyes looked massive in the dim light.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Eddie said.

“Didn’t notice,” Richie said, voice gravelly. He cleared his throat and winced. “Jesus, you’re hot.” 

“I’m sweating,” Eddie pointed out quickly, pulling his shirt away from where it stuck to his chest. He sat there for a moment more before extracting himself from the tangle of their legs. Richie did his best to help, tucking his heavy legs up in the general direction of his chest. He hadn’t realized they’d gotten so tied up. Eddie sat on his ankle at an awkward angle and made him wince, but managed to get to his feet. His shirt was untucked in the back, hopelessly wrinkled, sleeves having fallen limply to his wrists again. Richie watched him with a softness in his gaze, finding the little highlights in his hair and on his skin in the dim glow of the room. Eddie scratched and attempted to straighten his hair, unaware he was being observed. “I gotta wash my face.” 

“Okay,” Richie said, nearly whispering, not wanting his voice to ruin the moment. 

Eddie placed his hands on his hips and leaned to either side, grunting as his spine popped. He cursed under his breath, then ambled toward his door. “G'nite.”

“Night,” Richie replied, eyelids heavy again. Eddie left the door slightly ajar. Richie inched back against the back of the couch, fumbling for the blanket in a pile on the floor. His eyes drifted closed, head pleasantly cloudy and buzzing. 

His drunk brain conjured himself up on a stage, older, hot lights beaming down on him, unable to see an audience that may or may not be there through the harsh reflection in his glasses.

His own voice came back at him through speakers in the wings, a bit his imaginary future self had been thinking on for a while. 

_ My husband is shorter than me. He would make sure I let you know he’s of perfectly average height, and he is, he says he’s 5’9 so he’s 5’8, really, which you could agree is average. You could say that. The only problem therein is that I’m 6’2, so there’s some obvious height discrepancy in there. He’s average height but I’m built like a malnourished gorilla, so he’s a little dwarfed in comparison. Most times it doesn’t bother him, and I hardly notice. Not all the time, I’m used to it by now. The only time I really notice is when we’re sleeping. I, and I’m proud to say it, am the little spoon. And Eddie, that’s my husband’s name, Eddie, this makes him the big spoon. You see our situation. Now, I love being married. We’ve been married for a little over a year now— thank you, yeah, I know. I know! It’s great. But yeah, I go to bed every night, we settle in, and I wear that little man like a backpack. I love every second of it. He’s not at this show tonight so I can say these things to you, if he found out I’m telling you all this I’d definitely be on the couch when I get home, backpackless. _

Richie could feel himself relaxing. It helped, that little mental interlude. Perhaps a little too expectant, but a nice image nonetheless. 

He wouldn’t remember thinking it for a second come morning. 

He dozed through soft sock footsteps, blinking when he heard a glass thunk down lightly on the coffee table. He gazed blearily up, finding a cool glass of water and Eddie’s fingers, wrist, watch, arm. He’d changed quickly into a fairly large dark shirt and a pair of cotton shorts, eyes widening just slightly when he saw Richie glance up at him. His irises were nearly black, pupils large and fathomless in the darkness. 

“Gonna need this,” he said, quietly, almost awkwardly, softly startled by eyes on him. 

Richie just grinned and nodded, sighing with a weighty content. “Night, Eds.”  _ Thanks _ . He heard Eddie make his retreat, heard the door nearly close, not quite, heard night silence and eventually nothing, slipping back into a dense, dizzy, comfortable sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> songs mentioned: 
> 
> How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) - Marvin Gaye  
> Everyday - Buddy Holly  
> Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley  
> You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon


	4. EACH NIGHT I ASK THE STARS UP ABOVE (WHY MUST I BE A GOOD FOR NOTHING TWENTY-SOMETHING DROP OUT WITH REPRESSED FEELINGS FOR HIS BEST FRIEND?)

**SUNDAY: 1:47 PM**

Eddie’s little slice of New York was a comfortable suburb outside the city. It was, decisively, no college town. This was not Richie’s first trip to New York, but this was a strange little part of it, to be sure. Rich with Eastern self importance, chock full of seniors and the occasional gaggle of high school kids: this looked like a place to experience the end caps of your life, not the exciting middle bits. People raised children here and died here, it seemed. As a matter of fact, as he and Eddie were chowing down on large slices of Racanelli’s on the heater-warmed brick porch outside, they could hear an ambulance scream toward the senior living facility looming above the strip of shops Eddie had chosen to parade Richie up and down to walk off his hangover. 

Eddie had given him a faint little look and Richie had laughed. There was something about Eddie’s expression whenever he was reminded of the cold fact of human mortality, as if it was ever rushing toward his overtly healthy 21 year old physique and he was made suddenly of how sparsely he was outrunning it. It looked as if he’d opened the fridge to particularly old cheese and seemed deeply frightened and disturbed by it. Admittedly, Eddie often looked like he was rapidly approaching an untimely death whenever Richie slipped into a Voice in public or otherwise, such as the southern dandy he’d put on as he held open a door for a gaggle of college girls in the last store they’d traipsed into. A folk music store. Richie had insisted they go in, despite knowing little to none about folk music or any of its corresponding instruments. Eddie seemed to be barely enduring his presence by this point, but taking Richie out for fresh air had been his idea and by the time they sat down for greasy pizza they’d both cheered up considerably because of it. 

“How do you like that,” Richie said as the scream of the ambulance died down, repositioning a glistening runaway pepperoni on his pizza slice, “Sounds like good ol' Betty finally bit the dust.” 

“Don’t be insensitive,” Eddie chastised, turning over his shoulder in the direction of the scattered purple lights, dim in the broad golden sunlight of the afternoon. “They’re not wheeling out a body, are they?” His face looked pallid even in the glow of the chilly day, making Richie smile just a smidge at his disproportionate discomfort. 

“Oh, Lord alive, Eddie, here she comes. They’ve put a sheet over her to shield her from the cruel light of day one last time. God knows she had enough sun spots as it was, it’s a kindness. Oh— the paramedics have struck the curb, oh she’s tipping, Eddie, there she goes, bitty down—” Richie clapped his hands to his mouth and Eddie swatted at him, a traitor smile budding on his face.

“Jesus, you really are a genuine fucking sicko, Richie,  _ quit _ that.”

There was something savagely pleasing about tricking Eddie into grinning about something gruesome. “Eddie, Eddie, look, they’re  _ rolling _ her I think they’re gonna roll her straight into the ambulance, right up the ramp. Jesus, call a  _ hearse _ , already—” 

Eddie knew for a fact there was no poor woman’s corpse on the sidewalk behind them, but he shushed Richie as if there might have been anyway. Richie couldn’t help but be charmed by how embarrassed he could be over nothing. His  _ sensibilities _ , Eddie had once infamously called it. That, and not being a weasel heathen like Richie himself. 

“If you can’t behave like a goddamn human being,” Eddie started, grinning like damned fool and pointing with the bitten off end of his slice, “I’m sending you back to Bill’s. No return address, signed, sealed, delivered.” 

Richie grinned widely. 

Eddie’s brief fuss over the ambulance died down quickly as the pair made their way through their pizza. Richie plowed through several slices, much happier once his aching head and tight stomach had been soothed by fresh air, water, and food. A comfortable silence stretched between them, the birds filling in the gaps in conversation. For a moment, Richie could smell kettle corn and hear whip-poor-wills braying in the trees of Bassey Park. An old song was crooning over the speakers on the patio of the pizza place, 

_ Teenager in Love? Really? Bad timing, Dion _

and at some point Eddie took up rhythmically tapping the toes of his sneakers against Richie’s shins. He seemed a little too full of energy in a good way. It felt like summer in the dead of November, they could have been sucking on Rocket Pops in the sunshine instead of struggling to keep their slippery pizza together under heat lamps. Richie would have been just as warm. He felt full to the bursting. Eddie looked buzzy and happy, seemingly feeling fine despite drinking last night. Not that he’d been all that drunk. Richie had just reached the magical point in life where two margaritas on taco Tuesday would give him a mild headache the next day. But Eddie’s cheeks were flushed with healthy color, hair neat save the cowlick in the back he still never could seem to settle, ghosts of old freckles barely there across his cheeks. 

Realizing he was staring, Richie focused on a gnarled slice of pepperoni glaring at him from his paper plate. What a mean looking little dude. It almost had a face. Richie pulled an ugly face back at it. How dare it try and ruin his good mood on this tip-top sort of afternoon? Cheer up, pepperoni. 

“What time do you work?” he said, finally breaking the silence and pulling his gaze away from the sad little salami. 

Eddie shifted up the cuff of his sleeve carefully, daintily avoiding getting grease on his jacket. “Three.” He met Richie’s gaze for what felt like the first time in a bit, big dark eyes bright when they focused on his. “We should probably head home soon, I gotta get ready.” 

Richie sucked the grease off a finger and pointed at him. “You’re not wearing that to work?” 

Eddie glanced down momentarily at his bagged out old t-shirt, zip up hoodie, and old jacket, (hangover couture despite his lack of hangover), then back up at Richie, cocking his head. “What do you think, bozo?” 

“Oh, okay then.” Richie held down a grin, plucking the soggy pepperoni from his plate when Eddie wasn’t looking, busy sneering at something stuck in his cheese he felt the need to pick out and wipe on his napkin. “Good thing, too.” Richie stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, lined up, and paper-football flicked the ugly little pepperoni across the table, sticking its landing right above the button line of Eddie’s jacket and plunging into his hoodie. 

“ _ Hey— _ ” Eddie jolted, taking a moment to actualize what had happened before he was flinging a cheese chunk right back at Richie with a vengeance.

Richie had to hold his arms over his head to avoid getting cheese stuck in his hair. Eddie didn’t stop there, though he never really did know when to stop, starting to pluck ice cubes out of his drink to pitch at him with alarming accuracy. “Can dish it out but can’t take it, huh?” 

“That soda’s about to end up in your lap, you little turd—” 

“You started it—” 

Richie successfully batted at least one ice cube away from his face, but the damage had been done. His jacket was peppered with damp spots. “I plan on finishing it too.” Richie did just that. Lightning quick, he snatched Eddie’s glass and knocked it back, fully committing to downing his (mostly full, painfully cold, and incredibly watered down) soda without breaking eye contact for a second. It was worth every second, watching him balk and stand up on the crossbar of his stool to bark at him and reach for his cup. Richie nearly choked laughing from the look on his face, and it wasn’t long before Eddie’s mean little expression was cracking up too. 

“I can’t  _ stand _ you,” Eddie managed, struggling to keep down a grin as he snagged the glass and slammed it back down on his side of the table. He upset the parmesan shaker and made a quick snag to right it, ears all pink. 

Richie realized a truth then. He had it wrong as a kid. Eddie wasn’t cutest when he was pissed off, he was cutest when he was pretending to be. 

**3:06PM**

Richie sprawled on the couch, heels resting among a few empty Mr. Pibb cans on on the coffee table, head tipped back. Popcorn ceiling. He mouthed the words, popping his lips.  _ Popcorn. Ceiling. _ He wondered if this was how dogs felt when left alone for hours at a time without their owners, knowing they’d return, distantly wondering what would happen if they didn’t. 

Eddie had been gone all of 15 minutes, but Richie couldn’t help being bored. He’d been there— how many days now? Since Thursday. Sunday. Tonight would be his fourth night in Eddie’s apartment. Jesus. Richie sat up fast enough to make himself dizzy, trying to remember how much water he’d had the whole time he’d been there. Not much, although albeit much more than when staying at his own place or Bill’s. He was relatively well taken care of here, if bored, he thought. He peeled himself off the couch cushions. 

He hoped he wasn’t overstaying his welcome. That was a genuine fear of his. Eddie was typically very vocal when bothered by things, and had not yet seriously told Richie he was getting sick of him, but some deep dark part of him worried he wouldn’t say anything. Fester about it, silently resenting every minute he was there. He tried to shake it off as he passed to the kitchen. He reached for a mug, finding some weird, presumable thrift shop find in the cabinet and filling it up in the sink. (For someone so tidy, Eddie sure did have a lot of kitschy little things like that. The salt and pepper shakers were little Holstein cows, a white one with black spots for the salt, black with white spots for pepper, and Richie was absolutely sure they were Eddie’s and not his roommates’.) He drank deeply from his mug, considering. He was avoiding going back to school, yes, because he was already so far along in the dropping out process that it didn’t feel worth it. He still had a housing contract which his parents would finish paying off come January, which he felt guilty about, but there was no real point in staying there without classes or work in Boston. His beloved university radio station had allowed him to quit quietly, promising him there’d be a position there if he ever made it back. He missed it already; there was something to be said about having an outlet for all the bullshit he had to say. And people actually seemed to like him and his Voices. He was even working on a couple characters to put on air. The thought made him sad. Kinky Briefcase would have to wait for his big debut. 

Maybe he could bug Eddie with that one when he got back today, try it out with an audience. Eddie would hate it. Richie smiled.

He’d make it back. He could finish school. There was no way he could breeze through elementary and high school that easily only to quit in college and end up in some dead-end position for the rest of his life. He was a fan of McDonald’s food, sure, but his dad had mentioned one too many times that he wouldn’t look good in that uniform at 40, and he had to agree.

He was just avoiding going home, that was it. Home was so miserably far away, and while he’d be glad to see his parents and the cat, he was happy enough seeing them on holidays and in longer stretches over the summer. Home was, so they say, where the heart was, and Richie had a hard time finding much heart outside his immediate family all the way out in Missouri. Heart was with Big Bill and Eddie and the rest of them, and his chest hurt thinking about being that far again. He hoped he was doing the right thing in couch hopping, wondering if time spent with Bill and Eddie (and maybe Stan, he should go see Stan in Albany before he went back to school to live out the rest of his damned semester contract) would satiate that ache at least for a little while. 

He took a deep breath after his third mug of water, pausing to wipe his mouth with the inside of his wrist. He should leave tomorrow. 

No, not tomorrow, tomorrow was too sudden. 

_ Tomorrow, tomorrow, there’s always— _

_ Oh, put a sock in it, Annie.  _

So tomorrow was too sudden. Tuesday. Wednesday? No. Too long. Rein it in.

“No longer than Tuesday, buckaroo,” he said to himself, turning to rest against the counter. This place was a little bit of a wreck, clearly to Eddie’s dismay, but it was nothing compared to Bill’s den. The poor bastard. “Stanley should be back by then.” He’d mentioned driving all the way down to Florida to kick it with Mike over his fall break. “You can go bug Stan. The Rich Tozier Tour, Couch Hopping to a Town Near You.” It helped saying it aloud. Making plans. Keeping busy. 

He had been reduced to a bored housewife, hadn’t he? He tipped his head back. Popcorn. Ceiling. “You’re really in for it now, huh, Rich?” 

Richie, noticing the cluttered counter and doing nothing more exciting than chugging water and talking to himself, was considering tidying up when Roommate Two (whom Richie had still yet to formally meet) burst in the doorway. He did admire the energy with which Eddie’s roommates tended to make their entrances. This one was sort of Kramer reminiscent, hair and all.

“You’re still here?” 

Richie glanced down at himself for a second to make sure. “As far as I can tell.” 

Roommate didn’t look bothered by that answer, which was a plus. He slung his bag down in the armchair and headed into the kitchen. Richie moved aside, clutching his mug to his chest, as he reached for an upper cabinet, pulling out a granola bar and retreating back to the living room to collapse on the couch. “How long you gonna be here?” 

“No longer than Tuesday,” Richie repeated, speaking it into existence. He had to leave eventually. 

Roommate Two glanced up at him. “Oh, cool. We’re having people over tonight after the game.” He looked down at his sneakers, licked his thumb and scrubbed at a scuff mark, then back up at Richie. “Think Eddie’ll mind?” 

“He does tend to mind most things, although that does include things that really don’t need to be minded.” So they were probably fine? Richie wasn’t sure. He also wasn’t sure what game was going on on a Sunday night, but he wasn’t going to question it. 

Roommate looked surprised. “Really?” 

Richie stared at him for a moment. 

Roommate continued. “He’s pretty quiet, I figured he was just mellow.”

Richie nearly laughed out loud. “You couldn’t fit  _ mellow _ and  _ Eddie Kaspbrak _ into the same  _ state _ if you tired,” Richie admitted, wondering to what degree Eddie’s reclusiveness had advanced. He’d said once he was keeping a ‘low profile’ at school, which Richie found hard to believe considering Eddie was so chock goddamn full of spitfire energy at any given time. He’d also said he didn’t speak to his roommates much, but that was a little much right there. His housemates of all people should know how far from  _ mellow _ Eddie really was. “What— what’s your name again?”

“Gregory,” he said, looking Richie over. “You guys have been friends since you were pretty little, right?” 

Color Richie surprised once again. Greg here didn’t seem to know a single thing about Eddie’s real character but he seemed to know that. Did Eddie talk to his roommates about him? “Yeah, since we were like eleven.” He idly picked up an old TV dinner tray and dumped it in the trash. 

“He’s not gay, is he?” 

For a first conversation with a guy, Richie was getting some serious whiplash. He felt his stomach drop, a coldness settling into the pit of his gut. His feet suddenly felt cinder block-weighted to the sticky laminate. His mug was empty, but he attempted a sip from it anyway, fumbling. “Eddie?” Richie was typically known for having a lot of control over his voice, but nothing could save him from how high pitched it got when he tried to respond to that one. 

He felt guilty about it immediately. 

He’d been in situations similar to this one, pinned like a butterfly to a board by a casually posed question and forced to flounder with it without flinching, but never about Eddie. Often about himself. Occasionally other acquaintances at school. He felt dizzy in a distant sort of way, head feeling tight and full of air. 

“Nah, not as far as I know.” His heart pulsed thickly in his throat. Guilt, phlegm? Could be either, he was raised Catholic and smoked a little too much for his mother’s liking. 

“Okay,” Gregory said, searching around the coffee table for the remote. Richie couldn’t read his tone. “I was just wondering, I didn’t wanna ask him to his face.”

“No, yeah.” 

“I just wondered.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Just thought if he was he’d wanna room with other—”

“Guys like that,” Richie hurriedly finished for him, afraid of what he’d been about to say. “Right.” 

Gregory hardly noticed. “Yeah, sure.” He lifted a shoulder. “Figured I’d ask.” 

“Yeah.” Richie filled up his mug once more. He kept his eyes low for a moment, looking at his jeans, his stupid ugly flannel. He hated it for a moment, all blend-in grungy neutrals. The unassuming Kinks shirt. Bitter taste on his tongue. “‘Course.” Eddie was due back at seven. Four hours to go. He’d make a hasty retreat and maybe stop by McDonald’s just to get out of the apartment for a second. Jeesh. He headed toward Eddie’s room, caught one more time when Gregory spoke up again.

“You guys are welcome to come hang tonight, if you wanna. Eddie’s usually studying, but maybe you can pry him out of his room for once.” 

He had a bad taste in his mouth, but he’d had enough water. “Sure, yeah.” Richie paused at the door, staring at the carpet. He snapped. “Oh,  _ football _ .” Football was on Sunday nights in November, yeah. Fuck. 

“Come again?”

“Nothing.” 

**7:14PM**

A rush of crisp fall air followed Eddie into the apartment. He could feel his cheeks flush the moment the warm air inside hit him as he peeled off his scarf and coat, laying them over his arm. He adjusted the bottle of wine in his hand as he shut the door. Jeff and Greg were stacking a couple six packs and boxes of soda on the freshly cleared counter. The couch was empty, save pillow and blanket bunched in one corner.

“Where’s Richie?” 

“In your bedroom.” 

Eddie blinked. What a thing to say. “What are you guys doing?”

“We’re having some guys over tonight.” 

Jeff noticed the bottle in Eddie’s hand. “Oh sick, are you drinking tonight?” 

Eddie opened his mouth, glancing to the side, guilty. “No, it’s Sunday.” It really was a bad idea. “This is just— the ladies at the office gave me this.”

“Ah.” 

Eddie waited until they seemed to lose interest in him (which wasn’t long) before escaping to his room, finding Richie laying back on his bed, his prized portable VHS player precariously balanced on his lap. His skinny legs were bent up to support it on his knees, jeans riding up his shins. Eddie thought “portable” was a relative term here, as the damn thing was only just slightly less clunky than a small television itself, but Richie had been over the moon when his Dad had gotten him the damn thing for Christmas a few years back. He’d raved about it over the phone, but this was the first time Eddie had seen it in person. It looked like it could crush Richie if he fell asleep and it slid down onto his chest. Richie pulled off his headphones with a grin. 

“Welcome back, Eduardo.”

A flutter ran through his chest. Eddie handed him the bottle and Richie seemed to perk up further. 

“ _ Rosé? _ On a Sunday night?” He set the player down on the bed with a dull thunk and swung his legs over the side. “My, how you spoil me. Good boy gone bad, huh?”

“It’s just wine,” he protested. He took the bottle back. “I dunno, there’s a little wine shop down the street, I just figured we could have a nightcap and get in bed early tonight.” 

Richie stared at him just long enough to make Eddie feel examined. “You’re becoming an old woman. You’re genuinely and actually turning into a bitty. C'mere, I wanna feel your forehead, are you ill?” 

Eddie ducked an attempt to reach out to him and held the bottle to his chest, slightly defensive. “I wanted it to be a nice Sunday, I feel bad that I’ve been leaving you alone here all week.” 

Eddie didn’t even think to note that Richie had shown up unannounced and of his own volition. Maybe he was just that glad to see him. 

Richie reached up to rough up his hair. Eddie let him this time, closing his eyes and opening them to Richie’s t shirt. Oh, cool. He liked The Kinks. He smelled like Eddie’s fabric softener. 

“You wanna get started now?” 

Eddie looked up at him. “I can’t get drunk.” 

“No one’s forcing you. And if that’s all you have, there’s no possible combination of two people who could get drunk off that.”

He had some other bottle leftover in the fridge, but he wasn’t letting Richie know that just yet.

Eddie was a little drunk. 

He was, admittedly, only two glasses deep, but that was Julie’s rule of thumb for getting him tipsy enough to get him grooving. He’d yet to break into the fridge wine, but it was certainly on his mind.

He and Richie were sitting on the floor, mugs in hand. They really only had mugs and solo cups in this apartment. Eddie’s had a small family of Jack Russell Terriers on it. The handle was a bust of another Terrier, which Eddie decided was the mom. Richie said it looked like it was mounted like a hunting trophy, but Eddie just thought it was kinda fun. It was one of his favorites. Richie’s was a beer stein from Salt Lake City. Richie was being a general nuisance, picking through and scrutinizing Eddie’s unimpressive record collection in the milk crate under his bed. It was lofted and just high enough for one taffy-pulled looking annoyance to fit underneath, sitting a little hunched. 

Eddie couldn’t keep his eyes off him. The light from his lamp was golden and diffused nicely throughout the room, catching little glints of red in the darkness of Richie’s hair. His mom was a redhead, Eddie remembered. Maggie was always so nice. His brain brought him back briefly to the Tozier breakfast table, tearing into blueberry pancakes with Stan and Bill and Richie on the rare occasion Eddie’s mom let him sleep over. The Toziers always had the radio on in the mornings. His mom made the best pancakes and sang while she did, his dad always showed Eddie the comic strips in the morning paper, Richie always tried to steal bites off his plate and get syrup in his hair. Constantly vying for attention and almost always getting it. Eddie sighed, slumping against his desk, holding his mug steady with both hands despite it being empty. 

“This is the third time I’ve looked through these and I’m still shocked you have such shit music down here.” He’d put on Marvin Gaye again, having decided that was the only album there worth listening to. 

“I told you, they’re mostly gifts. I usually buy cassettes, I use my Walkman more.” 

“Show me your tapes.” 

Eddie shook his head lightly, turning his nose up. “Over my dead body.” 

Richie reeled back to look at him, all big blue eyes and curiosity. His sleeve, which had been shoved up haphazardly above his elbow, had slid down. The cuff did not reach his wrist. 

“God, your stupid arms are so long.” 

Richie held out a hand, flicking his fingers toward his palm. “Tapes, Kaspbrak.” 

Eddie cocked his head. “Why don’t we go for a walk?” 

“Because you’re denying me access to your cassette collection and you’re so obviously drunk.”

The next few minutes saw a brief spat between the two of them, Eddie insisting he was barely tipsy, Richie insisting he was a bastard and a liar and a horrible terrible friend for not letting him at his music. Eddie agreed that Richie could look through them after a quick walk, he needed air. It was a little stuffy in the apartment. 

“And it’s bitter as shit outside.” 

“You’re from  _ Maine _ , Richie, this is nothing. Grow the hell up.”

Richie ended up agreeing. Eddie had to bundle him up in one of his own scarves and jackets, which Eddie found entirely too endearing. He didn’t voice that sentiment, instead silently picking out a pair of gloves that might fit Richie’s big dumb hands. This came to no avail. Richie declared that he could shove his hands in the pockets of Eddie’s jacket, then suggested that Eddie could hold his hands to keep them warm, if he so pleased. For that he earned a little shove to the shoulder. 

Eddie wanted some fridge wine. He was pretty sure it was Pinot, actually an old gift from the ladies at the Registrar’s office where he worked. 

Eddie brought their mugs out into the living room, trying to seem inconspicuous. He didn’t do a great job. Greg said hello from the couch, flanked by two other guys Eddie who seemed vaguely familiar, holding cans of beer. The TV was on and the lights strung up above the couch were plugged in, otherwise the apartment was dim. There were a few more guys scattered around and Eddie could see Jeff and a couple others smoking outside through the window. It seemed the Sunday night shindig had just barely begun. Eddie filled Richie’s mug (per his request and whining that his tolerance was so much higher than Eddie’s) and added a little splash to his own, making it out the door without Gregory noticing their drinks. 

“I don’t want him to think I don’t like them,” Eddie explained once they’d passed the other guys on the stairs. “I acted all indignant about not drinking with them, and I’m out here drinking with you.” 

“Do you like them?” Richie was heading down without holding onto the railing, not looking at him, stubbornly keeping his hands in his pockets. The sleeves were short, they rode up and exposed his wrists. 

Eddie thought about it. “They’re fine.” He looked at Richie. “They’re not you guys.” 

“Me guys?” 

“You and everybody guys. And Bev guys.” 

Richie didn’t say anything for a moment. Eddie looked back at him once they reached the ground floor. Richie looked back at him. 

“I know what you mean.” And he did. “But they don’t seem awful, just pressingly normal college—are they jocks? They seem jock-like.”

“I’m really not sure.”

“They knew we were friends since we were kids.” 

“Yeah, Greg asked how I knew you when you were in the shower yesterday.” 

“So you’re not ranting and raving about me all the time to everyone you know, searching for the kind of fulfillment our friendship once instilled in you?” 

Eddie tugged at his sleeve when he reached the bottom step, ready to get going. “Not all the time.” 

“Where the hell are we going?” 

“There’s hammocks on the quad.” 

“Where’s the quad?” 

“Across the street, what is this, twenty questions?” 

“I have a right to know where you’re whisking me off to on this walk you insisted we take.” Richie took a swig from his mug and nearly spilled it down his front as they started off toward the crosswalk behind building one. “And if this was twenty questions, I’d be asking increasingly personal questions regarding whether your virginity is still intact, and if not, the when what who where and why.”

“Get one more glass of wine in me before you start on that, deal?”

Richie paused for a moment, surprised, blinking at him, and Eddie resolutely faced forward, face burning. 

“College has changed you.” Richie padded to keep up.

“Stop.” 

“I  _ like _ it.” 

“ _ Stop _ it.”

Eddie was a little pissed that they couldn’t really see too many stars. They were much too close to the city, so even with the clarity of that night there was a definitely unsatisfying amount of pinpricks in the sky. He sighed, heavy and dramatic.

“This was so much better at home.” 

“Because we lived in bum-fuck nowhere, Eds, of course it was better. We’re right next to the Big Apple and the light pollution is rampant, my dear.”

The two of them had collapsed horizontally across the length of the hammock on opposite ends, heads by each other’s elbows. From above, Eddie would have figured it looked like an old Spiderman panel composition, one where Spiderman was hanging from above and about to turn to kiss Mary Jane where she stood. Eddie was situated far enough back on the hammock that his feet were free swinging, but he knew Richie’s old sneakers were still in the grass. 

Eddie supposed that made him Spiderman. 

“Good thing we got the hell out of there.” 

This was the most common, and easiest, sentiment when it came to discussions of Derry. And even then, among their seven now spattered across the country and trying to desperately keep up with each other, discussions of Derry were limited. 

_ “The stars were nice, but the city’s better.”  _

_ “Jesus it was cold up there in the winters, remember?”  _

_ “Ben did a great job on that clubhouse. _ ”

_ Etc.  _

Then things would stop, fade out. Flickering quickly back to the present, a sinister sort of flame quickly snuffed by the wind of present reality. Sometimes Eddie had to remind himself that. Now was reality, Derry felt like something else entirely. Dreamland, Nightmareland. Shit from one of Bill’s morbid ghost stories. 

Eddie shivered, sipping on the last drops of his wine, careful not to spill, and pointed his toes to kick at the grass and swing them a little. “I don’t miss it.” 

“None of us do.”

“Have you ever been back?” 

“Not since that summer I was visiting family.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie sighed. It had been nice to see him, even just for two days. Last time before college. A tiny island of good memories and feelings in what had been a confusing and churning ocean of high school and aloneness. He’d been the last to leave, save Mike, but Mike had quickly gotten quickly wrapped up in football, budding star that he was. Eddie was endlessly glad Richie had come back East for school. He didn’t like to think about him going back home indefinitely, and he’d avoided it so far. 

“Remember that one long weekend before that? We went to smoke in that awful old house.” 

“ _ Bev and I _ smoked, you complained.” 

“Well you don’t have to think hard to see why.”

“You don’t smoke, you were still riding the inhaler high, you were jealous—”

“Absolutely not.” Eddie indignantly sat halfway up, then thought better of it and laid back down, setting the empty mug on his sternum and wrapping two cold hands around it. “You two ignored me most of the time we were there and I hated being in that fucking roach commune—”

Richie wheezed at that and Eddie elbowed him lightly. 

“I’m serious, that place freaked me the fuck out.”  _ The presence of cockroaches can trigger asthma attacks _ , his brain uselessly supplied.

“It was just an empty ranch house. No Nelson Street house.” 

“Nelson—” something about that felt wrong. The word pinged around in his head like a marble in a bowl.  _ 29 Nelson?  _ “It wasn’t on Nelson. There wasn’t a Nelson Street.”

“No, it was Nelson—”

“Neibolt.”

The night seemed to still. The name hung heavily and unnaturally in the air between them, a breeze that didn’t quite stir the grass or trees settling over them like a chilling blanket. Eddie had cut Richie off without realizing it,  _ Neibolt _ coming from a memory rather than his mouth, a by-gone made audible. 

After a stretch, Richie cleared his throat. “Neibolt Street house, yeah. That creep chased us—what was his name?”

“We never knew his name.” Eddie blinked. “Didn’t we?” 

“He was in school with us,” Richie offered, mouthing a few names that didn’t sit right in his mouth.  _ Bowie? Barton? _

“No, he didn’t, he was some creep, he was an adult, they were looking for him all summer—”  _ Hadn’t there been some worry of a serial killer? Wasn’t that it? _ Eddie was growing colder, unsure, but persistent. Not remembering clearly scared him, like there was too much for his brain to hold all at once alongside his sanity.

“You’re thinking of something else,” Richie said, voice low, contemplative. It raised suddenly. “Wait, did some full grown man chase you around—?”

“No, it was all of us—”

“ _ No _ , it was those crazy fucking kids from school who lived near Mike—” 

Their voices overlapped for a moment, rising in pitch and volume, snipping and arguing and chasing a thought loop, cutting off suddenly when a large bird took off from one of the few trees ringing the quad. They both jolted, instinctively pressing shoulder to shoulder. Eddie’s hand was clamped on Richie’s bicep for one second before he released him, returning reluctantly to his mug. 

“I don’t know. I don’t wanna think about it,” Eddie said. His voice sounded suddenly a lot smaller, nearly lost in a high gust of wind that uncomfortably turned up his collar. 

Richie looked longingly into his mug. “I want more wine.”

“That’s the best idea you’ve had all day.”

“You have  _ class _ in the morning, teacher’s pet.” 

“I deserve some time off, dropout.” 

“See, this Eddie I could get used to. You’ve grown up, baby, and I  _ like it like it like it _ ,” Richie said in some Voice that was not his own, yet one Eddie couldn’t for the life of him place. He laughed despite himself, nudging him again and urging him to get up. They’d have to at the same time or the hammock would dump them both. It was getting cold. 

Jeff and Greg’s ill-advised post-football mini-rager was in full swing by the time they returned. Neither of them had noticed how long they’d been gone, but they must have chatted on the quad for longer than assumed. The apartment was packed with bulky guys who looked somewhat indistinguishable from Eddie’s roommates. (“What is this, the county fair? That’s a log of goddamn beef,” Richie had commented much to Eddie’s embarrassment.) It took them all a moment to notice Richie and Eddie’s return, but they roared when they did, and Eddie had to shush the maybe 10 strong wanna-be frat boys bellowing his name from his still (miraculously) intact living room. 

Richie graciously slipped outside for a quick smoke while Eddie headed to his room to change. He tugged on an old t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, tying them at the waist. Richie appeared a few moments later and changed as well, and they made their best charge to the kitchen to score the rest of the Pinot bottle. 

Richie, unfortunately, got caught up momentarily with charming a pair of lacrosse players who insisted he take a shot with them. He was just chuffed to have found the two crazy bastards drinking hard liquor on a school night. Then a second shot, because they were such stand-up guys. Eddie had just snuck the wine out of the fridge and under his shirt, afraid for some reason it would be snatched and chugged the moment it was revealed, when Richie was lining up for a third. Eddie caught him by the sleeve of his sweatshirt just in time and maneuvered him back into his bedroom. 

Richie’s face, already pink from the cold, was reddening. “They’re really not so bad,” he said. “I was a little goddamn unsure earlier today, I’ll tell you what, but those guys are alright.” 

“Am I gonna have to drink the rest of this to catch up, dumbass?”

Music pounded distantly from outside Eddie’s door when he shut it, to which Richie swayed lightly. “Well  _ I’m _ not the one turning it into a competition. I can’t believe you’re drinking this much on a school night. I can’t decide if I’m proud or terrified of you. I think it might be turning me on a little, this is hot shit right here, dude.”

Eddie burned, but chose to ignore it, ushering Richie into the bathroom to change into PJs. 

He emerged a moment later, leaning against the doorframe briefly. 

Eddie blinked from his spot on the edge of the bed.“What are you wearing?”

Richie looked down at himself as if realizing for the first time what he’d put on, haphazardly snatched out of his backpack. “Oh, this is Bev’s.” 

“You’re wearing Bev’s shirt?” 

“Yeah.” 

It was a sweatshirt from a university in Chicago, yes, but it was definitely a women's’ cut sweatshirt. That was what he’d noticed. The collar looked stretched out, laying on his collar bones like that, and the hem was a little too short on him. “Why are you wearing Bev’s shirt?” 

“She gave it to me.” 

“Why’d she give you that?” 

“I don’t know, she didn’t want it. I think I slept in it last time I visited Chicago and stayed at her’s and I just went home in it. Weren’t you the one who didn’t wanna play twenty questions?” 

Eddie shook his head, taking a swig from his Pinot bottle. He was just going to drink it like this. It was fine. “I probably have a couple of Bill’s shirts somewhere, I think I have some of yours, I don’t know why I’m pressed.” He took another swig to chill himself out, having not realized his shoulders had tensed. 

“You’re just pressed in general. You’re Sir Pressed, knighted by the Queen herself.” 

“I’m not, I just need another glass of wine.” Another mug, But he wasn’t going to measure it out, he could just pull from the bottle, and it would be kind of Richie not to say anything. 

Richie didn’t. He tugged down his sweatshirt a little as if now a touch insecure about it and reached for his VHS player, all packed up in its carrying case. The velcro was loud when he opened the flap to lug it out. “Do you just wanna split the rest of that bottle and watch a movie? 

Eddie thought for a moment. “You don’t have Dirty Dancing with you, do you?”

“I wish, I left that one at my parents’ house. But I was halfway through Alien and I don’t mind starting over.” 

For someone who talked so damn much, sometimes Richie knew exactly what to say. And Eddie was eternally grateful for it. He did love Sigourney Weaver. 

Richie really had to jam himself into the corner to properly fit into Eddie’s bed with him. He lifted his shoulders up to his ears and tried to settle the player between their laps in a way that didn’t crush them both. Eddie was spectacularly warm next to him from the wine, and Richie couldn’t really complain. 

“Ow— Can I get a little room here? My leg is cramping up.” 

It seemed he still did have the potential. 

Eddie grumbled at him and adjusted yet again, trying just as desperately to get comfortable. He’d set himself up for quite the nightcap, looking more drowsy with every swig. Richie stole a few off the bottle both to keep up with Eddie and to keep Eddie from hitting the bottom by himself. He’d seen him do that only once before with disastrous consequences. 

Eddie yawned. Richie managed to yank an arm out from where it was wedged against Eddie and throw it over the pillows behind him. He glanced at him. 

“You’re not gonna make it through this.”

“It’s a long ass movie.” 

“It’s like two hours, that’s standard.” 

Eddie didn’t protest and Richie worried for a moment that he’d finally passed out. He cocked his head for a better look. He was blinking heavily, but still up. Richie was almost proud. It had been an eventful handful of days, and it was probably best that he get sleep before what Richie was sure was going to be an overly packed week. His schedule did not seem forgiving in the least. Richie, feeling a strange warm sort of calm settle over him, figured he could use another good night of sleep here too. He was worried he’d be wired the moment he and Eddie clambered into the same bed, concerned his brain would override the niceness of settling in to watch a movie with him with undue anxiety and personal pressure about being in his bed, but he was pleased to find it was just that. No nervous energy. It was just nice. They’d spent many nights as kids in neighboring sleeping bags or in one of the Loser’s beds (albeit, usually with another friend present), and things just kind of fell right back into place. 

A lot had fallen back into place. Every time Richie went too long without seeing Eddie, he felt this weird fade in his memory, like distance was enough to dull the edges of all those years spent together. It took no time at all to come rushing back once they saw each other again, pitched back to being 13 and picking on each other like it was the only thing that mattered. Richie was glad that he no longer felt like he needed to steal Eddie’s snacks or throw clods of mud at him for attention, but it was always still an option. He hoped he’d never stop enjoying getting a rise out of him. 

Richie had found a somewhat comfortable slot between Eddie and the wall, had organized his limbs in a way that wasn’t giving him cramps, and felt nearly mellow. How ‘bout that. 

Then Eddie’s head plunked heavily on his shoulder and Richie felt his pulse jump. He kept his arm on the pillows tense, not allowing it to actually fall around Eddie’s shoulders despite wanting to. Knowing Eddie couldn’t see, he rolled his eyes at himself, adjusting his glasses and breathing out slowly and evenly. Eddie did the same, sleepily, and Richie attempted to focus on the damn movie. He’d seen it so many times it was all too easy to fade out of focus, playing merely as background noise to his increasingly rapid thoughts. If Eddie fell asleep he was going to have to make the call whether or not to stay the night in bed with him or make the awkward transition to the couch. There was going to be a lot of awkward limbs and elbows in faces knees in guts and there was no way Richie was going to make it out of there without waking Eddie, and the poor bastard did still have class early tomorrow. As it stood, there was still a Sunday night bash going on in the living room, and there was no way Richie was going to have enough room to squeeze onto the couch, let alone lay down, let alone sleep. 

The choice seemed obvious, but Richie for the life of him felt like he didn’t have the power to make it. He sat there, stiff, sweating, eyeing Eddie every few minutes to make sure he was still awake and waiting for him to call the movie off and banish Richie to the living room so he could get some proper R&R. 

It never happened. Eddie’s thick eyelashes grew increasingly heavier, nearly kissing his cheeks by the time Ripley was making her last stand, and Richie knew he was done in. 

Eddie barely stirred when Richie shut off the VHS player, only grunting half consciously. He slid downward while Richie leaned over him, hastily unplugging it and stretching to place it on the desk, careful not to drop the whole thing. He was fully horizontal once Richie settled back and quite pleased with himself about it. He heard the clatter of Richie’s glasses landing on the desk. 

Eddie’s voice was groggy, fuzzy even in his head. “I was afraid we wouldn’t fit,” he said, feeling a strange need to say something as Richie started to settle back into the sheets. Something hung in the silence in the moment of Richie looking down at him like that, glassesless, propped up on one like he was, and Eddie needed to puncture that tension. It felt oddly like Richie was silently asking for some sort of permission, and Eddie wasn’t sure he was really equipped to give it to him. He’d rather it go unsaid.

Richie kicked out a wrinkle in the sheet where it had tangled under Eddie and fitted himself none too neatly into his tiny space against the wall. Eddie only had one pillow to spare, as his other one was currently held captive by the boys in the living room, and Richie was definitely going to have to put that stupid big ass head somewhere. Richie sighed, twisting his hips and stacking his legs, propped still on one elbow, stiff, noncommittal. “I’m still not so sure we do.” 

Eddie let it hang there for a second. Richie sitting up like that was making him oddly tense. He patted the bed beside him and Richie starred to shuffle downward, still battling the sheets to get comfortable. It was just Richie, Eddie reminded himself. He inched over to give him a little room, resolutely on his back. His brain kept misfiring when he tried to think whether to lay facing Richie or away. Both options were giving him trouble. Even if it would give Richie less room, he’d stay on his back. Richie had no choice but to face him instead of the wall, and this positioning felt just. Neutral. Eddie clicked the light off and plunged them into darkness, empty and waiting. 

He blinked, eyes adjusting, unable to see and only able to hear Richie’s breath stilt as he tugged a corner of blanket to cover his shoulders, head hitting the empty mattress next to Eddie’s pillow. Eddie’s blood seemed to race in his temples, mouth moving just to fill the sudden silence.

“If you hog the comforter I’m throwing you to the jocks, got it?”

He heard Richie snort, which broke the weird hard curtain of awkwardness between them for a moment. “No funny business, roger that, Cap-i-tan.” His voice was deep and wine soft, and Eddie closed his eyes against the press of darkness, grinning, shoulders releasing a little tension when Richie finally settled down. They fit okay.

Truthfully, Eddie drifted off then for a moment, missing the awkward way Richie had to readjust without shoving him clean out of bed. He was so grateful for extra-long twin beds, but still a little scornful about the twin part. He reminded himself that he and Eddie had shared a bed multiple times when they were younger. They’d done it last time they’d camped out in Bill’s backyard, maybe two years ago, on an air mattress (admittedly, a double). They’d fallen asleep with each other on the couch just the previous night. It was nice, it was normal. There was nothing abnormal about this. 

But Richie could feel his pulse in his wrists. 

Maybe it was just the privacy. Tiny twin bed in a private bedroom, locked door. Maybe just that. The couch was out in Living Room World, out where there was risk of being walked in on and absolutely no room for funny business of any given variety. Here there wasn’t the pressure of social norm. No one could see if Richie threw an arm over Eddie and Eddie didn’t mind. 

As of right then, Richie was keeping his arms crumpled up against his chest, his legs rather uncomfortably stretched out straight and stacked on top of each other. He leaned a shoulder back against the wall, hoping he wouldn't end up sprawled all over Eddie the moment he drifted off. He was both exhausted and too worried about that to sleep, not wanting— he wasn’t sure. Not wanting Eddie to wake up and shrug him off, not even wanting to set up the possibility of Eddie uncomfortable and awkward and placing Richie’s heavy limbs back in his own immediate space, feeling crushed. It was warm under the comforter with the both of them wedged together, despite the window at their heads sucking some of the room’s available warmth through the glass. Their body heat diffused under their little blanket pile, pulling Richie into the downy softness of the mattress and the familiar scent of Eddie’s hair and tucking him in, leftover spins from the shots rocking him until exhaustion overpowered worry and turned his brain off like the flick of a light switch. 

Eddie jolted when a dull thud sounded in the living room. His eyes peeled half open, senses flicking back on for just a second. Something bodily crashed into his door with a hard thump. He heard a stupid snicker from outside, a shush, then a dumb sleep-giddy Richie snicker immediately next to him, soft in his ear. Eddie couldn’t help but breathe out a little huff of a laugh, turning slightly toward Richie and immediately relieving some stiffness in his back. Richies arm fell over his chest and he inched sideways against him, not minding. He might have mumbled something along the lines of a snide comment on his big stupid limbs, unoriginal, but any venom in it was lost in how easily he accepted the arm. It was heavy, weighted, comforting in a way he wouldn’t admit to himself sober or fully awake. 

Richie did have a lot of body to deal with in a twin bed. Especially a shared one. He was surprised when he blinked awake for no real reason to find he’d gotten comfortable. He took groggy inventory of himself, finding one of his knees was now resting over Eddie’s, which felt somehow perfectly alright. His arm hadn’t been plucked indignantly off Eddie’s chest, which felt great. His hand relaxed, dangling over Eddie’s side. Richie's head was tipped back at a slightly awkward angle; he tipped it forward so he wouldn’t get a krick and found his cheek on Eddie’s chest. Warm, rising and falling softly, deeply. He blearily considered moving, not wanting to push his luck, before Eddie’s hand, sweet and instinctual, cupped the back of his head. Richie’s eyes blinked wide, fluttering and falling closed when he felt fingers so barely barely sink into his hair, and he was out again. 

A single vertebrate clicked in Eddie’s back. His eyes blinked open in the dark. His spine must have twitched just enough so to pull him out of the murk of what was proving to be an uneven sleep. Deep but patchy, breath slow and warm. He turned his head, finding his nose brushing through Richie’s coarse hair, surprised for only a second before remembering. The wine slowed his thoughts, brain sluggish. 

Richie had settled in beside him, heavy and present and sprawling. Eddie slowly became aware, hyperaware, of the way their legs had settled, stacked. The heaviness of Richie’s thigh over his knee. He breathed. Just Richie. Just Richie in a pile of limbs carelessly tossed across him, much too big for this but seemingly getting along just fine. Eddie lay still for a moment, listening to Richie’s breath whistling softly though his nose, aware suddenly he could feel the easy rise and fall of his chest against his side. Thoughts threatened to surge up in the back of his mind, deep rooted panic wanting badly to overwhelm him, but Eddie consciously swallowed it down. His heart thrummed steadily, slowing as he soothed his mind. Richie sighed, shifted, the very tips of his fingers brushing the soft collar of Eddie’s t-shirt. Eddie was asleep again before he noticed. 

Richie was hot. Richie typically cold, but apparently the two of them tucked so closely together was creating a little microwave environment under the covers. He was comfortable, if a little sweaty around the hairline. Eddie was burning up, still not unpleasant to lay across. Richie breathed in slow, nose nestled at the junction of Eddie’s neck and shoulder. He smelled like Eddie, fresh and clean and  _ there _ . That was nice. A tired grin slid across Richie’s face. It was  _ nice _ . He marveled silently at his luck. No way would he be this calm about this without that last shot. God bless a kindly lacrosse player. If only his 13 year old self could see him now, he’d straight shit himself. He could feel the warmth of Eddie’s neck against his knuckles, realizing he’d gripped his collar lightly in his sleep. Richie made no move to let go. His thumb traced soothingly against the ribbed fabric.  _ Count your blessings, Rich. _ His eyes fell closed. 

Richie’s hair was surprisingly soft under that initial coarseness. Eddie found this thought rising up as if out of a deep lake, quietly surprised to find himself blinking awake again. Richie had snuggled closer, body pressed tightly to Eddie’s side. He could feel sweat at the nape of his neck. His chest burned a little where Richie’s arm lay across his sternum. It was stuffy under the comforter, but not unbearable. Not even uncomfortable enough to move, save shoving one foot out from under the blankets. Ah. Better.

Richie’s hand was a comforting weight, boney knuckles hot against his skin. Eddie saw no harm in adjusting an arm, fuzzy and stiff, no harm in his hand happening to end up against the back of Richie’s head. He drifted again, idly exploring the way Richie’s hair wove through his fingers, how it felt to cradle the back of his head like this. 

Ow.

Richie’s neck hurt. His body was tense. He hadn’t consciously tensed, so he was surprised to find himself consciously uncoiling a muscle here and there. His shirt had rode up over his back, but it wasn’t bunched or causing him any real discomfort. There was nothing, in fact, causing him any real discomfort. He didn’t even have to piss. Why the hell had he bothered himself awake for no goddamn reason? Asshole. 

He blinked slowly, relaxing his neck and shoulders and turning to bury his nose against Eddie’s shoulder once again when he felt a snag at the back of his head.

Eddie was gripping his hair now, if ever so lightly. His eyes opened just barely past half lidded, he exhaled slowly. Richie breathed, consciously settling, consciously thinking nothing of this. Nothing wrong with any of this here, no sir, no feelings rising up in his chest like bile. Good bile? No titter of his heart, no thanks for asking. This wasn’t gonna hurt in the morning.

Eddie’s hand shifted, Richie’s fingers tightened just slightly in Eddie’s collar, pulling it slightly away from his neck. He fretted for only a moment, but Eddie wasn’t budging. Asleep. Nothing was wrong. Richie sighed. Nothing was wrong. He uncoiled his fist, the pads of his fingers lighting up where he brushed Eddie’s skin. The barely there sound Eddie made was lost on him as he fell back into an inky sleep. 

Richie’s breath against his neck roused him, eyes not quite snapping open. Peeling, almost. He released a deep breath he’d been holding, confused for just a moment. Clarity came briefly: Richie’s fingers brushed lazily, sleepily, against the junction of his neck and shoulder. It was a tired sort of drag, thoughtless. There was something sweet and curious in the gesture, in the sweep of his fingers, nails just barely gracing his skin. Surface level, not even slightly digging. Just there. Tickling, almost. Eddie’s shoulders lifted slightly, skin prickling where he touched him. If he thought hard enough, he could map out his fingerprints in his mind. Richie’s nose prodded up underneath his ear against the other side of his neck and Eddie felt his temperature click up a few notches. He didn’t need to see to know Richie’s mouth was hanging just slightly open; he could feel the hotness of sleeping breath wash over his skin. 

He felt his spine tense again, one bicep twitching hard, holding down a shiver that threatened to race up his spine. His ears were burning. 

He closed his eyes forcefully, intentionally. The ball of Richie’s shoulder fit comfortably in his palm as he reached down and around him to hold on a little tighter, tucking him in closer. Richie’s whole body melted against him, and Eddie’s head was spinning. He bunched Richie’s sleeve in his fingers, clinging tightly. Maybe if he could hold onto him they could ride this out like nothing was happening. Eddie wrapped him up until his thoughts came slow and easy, until his brain eased off the gas and Richie’s weight and warmth dragged him back to sleep. 

It was getting too hot now. Slight discomfort. Sweating, Richie soothed himself by sweeping his thumb gently over whatever lovely smooth patch of skin it happened to rest against. The collar of Eddie’s shirt had shifted a little further down, Richie’s fingers idly brushing the ridge of his collar bone. 

Oh. 

Eddie’s hand balled tighter in the back of his shirt, hand having wandered downward to hold him. He’d shifted more onto his side, his far arm draped lightly across Richie’s waist where his shirt had ridden up. Skin on skin.

_ Oh _ . 

His stomach swooped, dizzying him. 

His brain scrambled to rationalize. This was just a matter of sleeping in such a fuck-all tiny bed. A little wine and a little bed went a long way. Richie would have knocked Eddie clean over the edge long before this if they hadn’t snuggled up like two little koala bears, and maybe he’d been near falling off when he turned to cling to Richie. And he was clinging. He was holding tight and Richie’s heart was fluttering around among his ribs like a caged bird. As if he would ever be able to see anything sans light and sans glasses, his eyes flicked upward, confronted with nothing but darkness under Eddie’s jaw. 

He breathed out slowly. Eddies skin flinched under his breath. 

_ Jesus _ . 

As badly as he wanted to fall asleep, Richie’s nerves were lighting up. There was no way now. 

Eddie flattened his palm against Richie’s spine, lungs tight. One arm had fallen asleep under him, he’d slid it free and held it close between their chests. Richie was blazing against him, burning his silhouette into his skin. He was suddenly acutely aware of where his own shirt rode up on one side, just a few square inches of his hip exposed, but enough to make him lightheaded.

He was loose. He was relaxed. He felt exceptionally normal right now, he lied to himself. He was still tipsy, fuck knows what time it was and he’d hardly gotten any sleep so he was probably fucking exhausted, so his brain was jsut going a little haywire. That must be it. He’d spent how many hours rolling around in that stupid hammock with this idiot boy as a kid, there was nothing new or exciting or weird about this. There couldn’t be. 

_ Just Richie _ . 

He found the hem of Richie’s shirt and tangled his fingers in it, focusing on how the fabric felt in his hand rather than how Richie’s fingers felt against his skin. That he could not focus on. He wouldn’t. Off limits. This shirt was so nice. Fascinating, actually. Would you look at that. Think about the stupid goddamn shirt. 

Richie’s brain was forcefully held awake. He wanted to straighten his legs out, quads tense enough to burn, but he didn’t dare move for fear of unsettling Eddie. His sweatpants were crazy soft, Richie only able to feel them where their legs tangled because his own flannel pants had ridden up nearly to the knees. He needed to get some clothes that actually fucking fit him for once. Note to self.

One of Eddie’s nails just barely brushed against his spine and he had to hold himself perfectly still. His breath rushed out through his nose, heart jamming up in his throat. 

Eddie was asleep. Eddie had been drinking. They both had. They were comfortable enough to share a bed and neither of them would do anything to violate that. That was something special between them. Richie was just going to have to fall back asleep, Richie was going to have to ignore the fact that he could feel every hair trigger point on his body that Eddie was touching. All along the front of his body, where their ankles and thighs stacked on top of each other, where his hand laid on Eddie, where Eddie’s hand laid on him. Wasn’t he in New York?  _ Fuggedaboutit _ . 

Eddie decided he had to move. If he disturbed Richie, so be it, he couldn’t stand laying stiff like this a second longer. His face was growing hot, his skin was flinching ever so slightly everywhere Richie touched him.  _ Richie _ , he reminded himself. It was Richie, the wine was just turning up the heat. Physically, people felt hot when they were drunk. Eddie wasn’t on fucking fire because Richie goddamn Tozier, the dorky kid dropping ice cream all over himself in the photo above his desk, had his great big awkward hands on him. 

And boy did he ever.

He flipped properly onto his side, fully facing him now, deciding in a split second that it’d be much less awkward than facing away. His arm naturally fell fully over his side. The inside of his forearm rested just below Richie’s ribs, hand dangling behind his back. Not really touching him, just contact. Not so bad. Livable. He could feel the tangible presence of the negative space between his hand and the small of Richie’s back, but it wasn’t so bad. He wasn’t dying to close that gap, it wouldn’t be nice or easy or wonderful or make his heart flutter to hold him like that. None of that mattered. What mattered was that Richie’s hand was forced to move when he flipped over, that he had to reposition to drape his arm over Eddie’s shoulder, hand slipping lazily from its place on the tender junction of his neck, releasing him from that hold. 

Oh thank  _ fuck _ . 

A sense of relief flooded him when that bubble of tension popped, when Richie was no longer touching him like that. 

Then came a cold sense of dread. What scared him was that within a second he missed his knuckles brushing over his pulse. The absence of that touch was pounding in his brain, he could feel it like he could feel how he actively wasn’t fitting his palm against Richie’s back. There was distinct longing there, something he couldn’t bear to address, not right now, not even still buzzy with wine. Longing like gazing three rows back and across the aisle on the bus when there were assigned seating on a field trip, when all he wanted was for K and T to be next to each other in the alphabet so he could just sit next to the stupid bastard and bug him the whole way to whatever museum in Portland, just a grown up version of longing. 

On-fire and right-here and you-can-have-this-but-you-really- _ can’t _ longing.

He breathed out a little harder than intended and made his eyes fall closed. He thought sleepy thoughts. Sheep hopping lightly over low fences thoughts. He’d pet a sheep once, Mike had had him over before shearing them when they were at their fluffiest and Eddie had risked one pat to a fuzzy head before retreating, afraid to trigger an allergy he didn’t really have. Sheep, Mike, allergies, Pepsi, Snickers, bikes, seagulls, trains, lobsters,  _ anything _ . He thought of anything but Richie. Yet Richie remained there, persistent, refusing to evaporate into thin air and relieve Eddie the pressure of this particular confrontation.

Richie struggled desperately to deny that any of this was happening, to deny that Eddie felt hot and awake and fidgeting right against him, to deny that his brain was soup and his legs were jelly and it was a damn good thing he wasn’t standing up or he might just collapse and pass right the fuck out. There was a distinct want backing up in his throat, a simmering sort of desire threatening to boil over, an urge to close every gap between them (and fuck, there were less than there had ever been), and a sharp awareness that he just  _ couldn’t _ . He couldn’t do that to Eddie, he couldn’t do that to the both of them, to the last ten years they’d existed in each other’s lives. 

This continued for some time. Neither of them could rightfully tell how long. It was drifting, almost a dance. Swaying with a strange coiled sort of tension and relaxing every time one of them relieved pressure on a certain nerve. But more nerves were being lit than quenched. 

At some point, the shock of it was dulling, the need to resolve it one way or another grew stronger than the frail want to fall asleep and forget it. They both abandoned the juvenile I’m-not-really-touching-him farce and let tiny slivers of curiosity take over, inch by inch, hands gradually moving to any point of interest on each other. 

Once he gave up one more degree of resolve, giving Richie an inch but still clinging to the ell, Eddie discovered that the nerves in his neck and down the path to his shoulders and collar bones were particularly firing tonight. Little aftershocks ran up and down his spine and down to his toes, turning his brain to pleasant mush. 

For Richie, it was every time Eddie’s fingers dared explore his back or scratch lightly against scalp. He could feel it deep in his brain when his fingers sank into his hair, eyes fluttering and rolling more than once. He tried to block up his throat, tired to hold his breath as long as he could, but he eased into one particularly heavy sigh when Eddie’s light fingers dragged up the length of his spine and he was done for. He hummed against Eddie’s throat, feeling him tip his head back and give him unspoken permission to press his face closer. 

They were both making vapid excuses in their heads, blaming everything but themselves and each other. There was the wine, there was the exhaustion, there was missing each other, there was maybe being asleep, maybe they were both just asleep and imagining someone else. Being lonely, single, being adults, being half-grown men who weren’t really allowed to snuggle up with their friends like they used to, nostalgia, maybe. Mammals needed physical attention, and they were mammals.  _ Anything _ . 

Sighs were exchanged in a way that made them both feel hot and intrigued, prodding for more. It was some kind of exchange, some kind of temporary lowering of boundaries. Eddie was fascinated with the way Richie’s breathing stilted and changed when he traced light circles against the back of his neck, stray curls weaving around his fingers. Richie was deeply invested in how Eddie’s back curved in toward him when his breath skated over his throat. 

Eventually, there was no space for thinking. This moment couldn’t exist alongside any thought deeper than strictly surface level. Any deeper than  _ This feels good  _ and  _ He seems to like it when I do that _ ; more than  _ Oh, wow  _ and  _ Did he sigh like that because of me?  _

It felt juvenile, somehow, for both of them, some stupid first-time kind of thing, but that wasn’t stopping them. There was no one there to see, no weird looks or pressure to uphold some unspoken rule. As long as the lights were off and the door was closed, they were allowed to try this, allowed to nudge a little boundary, and allowed to blame it on much too little alcohol to actually be responsible. 

It became more and more difficult to use being barely half awake as an excuse. Eddie was up, he was wired, and he knew absolutely that Richie was in the same state. Both of them were being too deliberate for this to be some accident, some dream impressed upon reality. There was too much intention behind the way Richie was touching him, too much tense energy into how lightly his thumb brushed over that sensitive spot between his jaw and his ear. 

Richie’s head was spinning, now doused in hormones to add to the cocktail still mixing up there. There was no way this could be happening. But here it was. Here was Eddie, Eddie he’d known half his life, pulling him a millimeter closer, tugging exactly on a lock of hair and waiting for his response, arching his back his neck when Richie touched him. Things that made no sense and perfect sense. 

Eddies nails just barely sank into his skin. Richie arched into the touch. 

Richie’s lips made tentative contact with the pulse in Eddie’s neck. Eddie sighed like it might be his last breath and he was perfectly at peace with that. 

All the blood in Richie's head seemed to drain downward, dizzying him. Delirium.

_ Sweet mother of Jesus, Rich, do not pop a boner right here, you’ll have to throw yourself out the goddamn window and try your best to freeze to death if the fall doesn’t take you out instantly. He only lives on the third floor, better go head first and make it count.  _

Without meaning to, a sound that almost could have been a laugh fell from Richie’s mouth, which he immediately clamped shut. His teeth clicked.

Eddie tensed up, not in a way that just indicated leaning into a new sensation. A closing down way. Eddie tensed up and Richie felt his brain go cold, static numbness suddenly creeping into his fingertips.

He wasn’t laughing, he didn’t laugh. Richie thought desperately.  _ He hadn’t laughed. _ He wasn’t laughing he didn’t laugh he was just marveling at how the fuck this could be happening, his brain was struggling to comprehend that this was  _ actually happening _ and it slipped. There was no way they could be laying there, face to face, touching each other in a way that meant something and had a physical gravity to it and he was just surprised, it was just a stupid nervous titter, but he knew instantly that that was all Eddie needed to shut down on him. The situation had been delicate enough. 

Richie thought to pull him closer but he knew he’d pull away and that might just break his heart. That might do him in, put it in the obituary. Death by rejection. He stayed perfectly still, stayed shock still like a mouse under the sharp watch of a hawk. 

They absolutely couldn’t be doing this. 

Eddie lifted his hand from where it had happily settled in Richie’s hair, body inching back away from him. They shouldn’t have even dared in the first place. The fact settled into the pit of Eddie’s stomach like a bad chicken wing just waiting to release food poisoning havoc on the whole system. They shouldn’t have. How the fuck did they start on this? His head swam, searching for the point where things had started getting too intense. How had it started? Why the  _ fuck _ hadn’t he put a stop to it the moment things started to feel some type of way? 

Eddie felt clammy and cold, guilt and embarrassment mixing toxically in his gut and drowning out everything else. That little snicker didn’t feel mean, but what if it was? What if this was another joke, Richie was just drunk and handsy, teasing like always? 

There was a horrible, searing vulnerability in both of them. Eddie wanted to just break it off and get away but he couldn’t bear to be cold to Richie, he couldn’t bear to flip over or make a fuss and somehow admit that something had gone wrong. Trembling, he ducked his head, tucking his face against Richie’s sternum and drawing his hands inward to his own chest, releasing his hold on him. He felt Richie hesitate and he squeezed his eyes hard, hating this, bile biting the back of his tongue. His body was overheated and uncomfortable, begging him to do  _ something  _ and fighting tooth and nail when his head screeched to a halt.  _ Absolutely  _ couldn’t. 

Richie felt numb and cold despite physically feeling as if he’d been slowly catching fire. Feverish, cold sweats. He felt like he was in trouble, like he was sitting in a small green plastic chair outside the principal’s office. He wanted to squeeze Eddie to his chest but they were both afraid to touch, afraid to move once they’d withdrawn from each other. They’d been afraid all night in the backs of their minds, afraid of any further touch than some light exploration strictly above the belt, strictly hands only.

What would have happened if they’d let it go that one step further? 

Once  _ that  _ thought passed between them, it was over. Full shut down. 

Richie listened to his pulse ramming in his ears and felt Eddie’s against his chest, frantic and hair-brained like squirrels. He wanted to wait until they slowed down to so much as move, stiff and achy, but the both of them were so frustrated and anxious that he knew that was going to take time, that they were going to fizzle and hiss and simmer for a while. 

He could wait. 

Eddie’s leg bobbed rapidly, not helping. It was so involuntary and so distracted he hardly noticed for a moment, but was unable to stop once he did. He needed motion, friction, he needed something that wasn’t horrible tense stillness. 

Eventually he had to move, squirm, anything. He shifted again to lay on his back, wanting so badly to go back to Richie asleep on his chest like a huge dumb puppy. It felt awful to uncurl from him. Cold, despite the cool relief of pulling back from his searing body heat. He felt Richie deflate, feeling sick to his stomach. 

Richie inched toward the wall, rolling one shoulder back against it, bracing himself. 

Eddie had to let him. He had to go.

Silence pressed deafeningly against their pounding ear drums, the soft hum of Eddie’s alarm clock loud and droning. It was just short of four in the morning. 

Heat like tears pressed against the back of Eddie’s eyes, dry. 

“Couch,” Richie grumbled, hoarse, quietly devastated, the tail end of a never quite formed sentence. 

Eddie resisted a fleeting impulse to catch at his sleeve when he sat up, a halo of fucked up bedhead curls illuminated by the dim silver light from the window. Richie stiffly started to inch toward the foot of the bed. Eddie resisted another urge to snatch for the waistband of his sweatpants, to pull him back down and tell him to forget it and it was fine and it was both of their faults and it didn’t matter, but the thick fog in his brain told him it did. It mattered and Richie had to get up. They had to put some distance between them and  _ that.  _

Even if at the root of it neither of them wanted to. 

Eddie couldn’t even move, he was so glued to the sheets. Sweating and stuck. He let his eyes fall closed, squeezing, balling a hand in the fitted sheet, feeling the bed shift as Richie adjusted and prepared to hop down. Eddie wallowed in regret, mental protective mechanisms blocking from pinning down exactly what for. Sick and dirty and incorrect. Cursing violently in his head, he quickly tugged at his waistband and adjusted the way his sweats were sitting on him, face burning shameful. 

Richie had sat up fast, much more graceful than Eddie would have imagined. Silhouetted in dim barely-morning light, the square of his shoulders, the breadth of the back of his hand when he reached up to rub the back of his neck before sliding off the bed, weary. He did stumble slightly when his feet hit the floor, and Eddie finally turned his back and faced the wall, feeling the warm impression on the sheets Richie had just abandoned. 

Richie, for once, had nothing to say. Nothing  _ could _ be said, the matter simply must be forgotten. Pack that one away, sign off. Think about it in two weeks in the shower and go frozen still under hot water with guilt, feeling like some sick monster all over again. 

But for right now, Richie couldn’t go with  _ idiot, asshole, monster;  _ he had to go with a firm  _ shit happens _ . Must be it. Must be shit happening, must be barely drunk and very tired and extremely lonely, must have dreamed some of it. Most of it. Fuck knows he’d had that dream before, no way had it actually come to fruition. Must have been some fluke, must be simply forgotten by morning. 

The party had died a couple hours ago, leaving only a lingering smell of beer and a collection of cans peppered around an empty pizza box on the coffee table. One cold slice rested directly on the tabletop. Richie’s blanket had been shoved into a crack between cushions, his pillow sat on, and Richie made quick cold work of straightening that out and flopping down limply in a heap. 

He was grateful he hadn’t puked in the time it took him to extract himself from bed and get horizontal on the couch. He felt like he could if he really wanted to. 

And that most definitely had nothing to do with the drinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i must admit that originally this chapter involved a portable dvd player, a device which inspires in me the strongest feelings of nostalgia for the 90s a person born in 1998 can feel, but i was thwarted and devastated to learn that portable dvd players didnt exist until 1998 and dvds themselves until like. 97. so its a gigantic fuckall portable vhs player and i couldnt find when those were first put on the market but at this point i dont care and am now in love with the idea of wentworth tozier getting one for his weird son the instant he hears they exist. also saddened to learn that austin powers didnt come out until 97 either. but life goes on. 
> 
> the name of this chapter is representative of how fucking long the chapter itself is and what is a good tense slowburn chapter without a fallout boy-eqsue wordy title
> 
> a brief note: if you really wanna Feel something take a listen to a little ditty called butterflies by samsa and really listen to those lyrics then read the first scene in this chapter again. my best friend and proofreader said that shit hits hard in a good way thank you and goodnight
> 
> song mentioned:  
> Teenager in Love - Dion & The Belmonts


	5. DENIAL, IF PRACTICED DILIGENTLY FOR YEARS ON END, REALLY IS AN EASY ART TO MASTER

**MONDAY: 7:42 AM**

Neither of them slept at four, at five, six, not really, but breakfast at seven was forcefully normal. It had to be. Normal took a moment to settle, normal hung tensely in the air, normal was swallowed down until it eased into something very similar to _normal_ normal. Normal fine, normal that didn’t happen, normal _Richie how the hell are you twenty goddamn years old and can’t keep your cornflakes in the bowl_ , normal _Eddie now that’s no reason to flick milk at a man, you’re making matters worse_. Normal for now, normal forget it, normal knowing the moment Eddie left for class and they both had a moment to themselves to think about it normal would come crashing down around them and they’d have to scrabble about on the ground to pick up the shattered pieces before Eddie came home normal. Rinse, repeat, continue indefinitely. Allow no sense that something has changed. 

Allow nothing _to_ change. 

Richie and Eddie just joshin’ as always, 

Normal.

Monday fell under the no-later-than-Tuesday rule Richie had established for himself. 

Therefore, he figured it was a perfectly reasonable time to leave. 

The moment Eddie had walked out the door with a shyer-than-usual wave, Richie was stuffing his scattered belongings into his backpack. His shit was a little spread between his dorm, his car, Bill’s, and otherwise, so he’d grabbed a somewhat random bag when getting out of the car once he’d reached Eddie’s the first night. He’d made several trips back to the car to get everything he’d needed to stay comfortably the last couple nights, and now it was overflowing his backpack and scattered throughout Eddie’s apartment. 

He had no intention to dip on Eddie without letting him know, although the notion was frankly tempting. While it was nothing short of cowardly, there was something about the idea of leaving Eddie with that and allowing the whole thing to come into question if they never had to confront it. It might as well have never happened that way. 

With that thought immediately came the image of an upset and confused Eddie, a feeling used Eddie, an Eddie Richie hated to see and loathed even more to have a hand in causing. He’d seen that duped look on his face, the confusion he often caught himself in when he wasn’t sure if he was being lied to or simply had something wrong, and it made Richie sick to think he’d ever put him in that place. A wayward joke about catching crabs, sure, but not that mess last night. There were lines to be crossed.

But if he wasn’t going to blatantly ignore it, Richie knew they’d have to talk this out at some point. And if _that_ didn’t make his stomach turn. He wanted desperately to shrug it off for now, to deal with it when they weren’t so busy. Just too much going on right now to address that. Sure. _Busy_ was a great excuse for a vast number of things. Richie was just about to enter what may prove to be the most devastatingly boring period in his life and Eddie seemed to have not much going on at all outside of school, but they were too _busy_ to address this kind of shit right now. Later, Richie decided. A solidly ambiguous _sometime_. He’d give Eddie a really solid hug before he left to let him know they were okay and consider talking it out at some later date. Maybe. They’d see. Maybe they’d never have to. Maybe Eddie was cool with leaving it how it was. 

Who was to say? 

Richie stopped halfway through stuffing a pair of jeans into his bag, tipping his head back. All cowardice. Come on. His head thrummed dully. He couldn’t exactly even call it a hangover, he felt like he’d sobered up the instant he’d walk-of-shamed his way back to the couch, but there was a persistent pressure behind his eyes. It wasn’t helping anything. He felt trapped in the apartment, trapped in the weird time frame between something having happened and the resolution. He fidgeted, frustrated, jamming his arm down to the elbow to pack the denim into his already stuffed bag. A walk might do him some good. He could pack up his car and get some fresh air, see Eddie when he came home, dip once he was sure they would be okay. He owed Eddie that much. He was shocked breakfast had gone alright, but he figured maybe they were just too rushed and tired to make anything of it. Eddie had seemed to be a little frantic, running a little late. 

There’s truly an excuse for everything if you squint hard enough.

But Richie could call that a plan. He’d pack and go for a walk. Sounded good, sounded cool, sounded just left of normal. 

So that left packing. 

One of his t-shirts was missing. Richie had kept very haphazard track of his things here, but he knew his t-shirt was definitely missing. The blue ringer one, it was old, nice to sleep in. A quick visual sweep around the living room proved it was simply not out here, and Richie couldn’t fathom really why it would be. He hauled himself off the couch, feeling heavy with dread. He had to brave Eddie’s room. 

He pushed the door open slowly, wincing when it creaked on its hinges. The whole space felt weirdly stiff; there was a certain undeniability that something had transpired. A Weirdness. While Richie was not unaccustomed to weirdness, it’s something you never get fully used to. He lifted his shoulders up to his ears, not looking at the bed. Returning to the scene of the crime was something he was none too fond of, but there he was, guilty thrumming heart and all. He rummaged around in search of the rest of his clothes, finding a couple socks under some of Eddie’s discarded jeans. The room had been near immaculate when he’d first arrived, but it seemed that Eddie had chilled out a little on the tidying with Richie there, their clothes mingling on the carpet. 

_Some bad influence he was. Seemed Mrs. K was right about him._

He did a couple rounds around the tiny room, even checking the bathroom floor just in case (finding a pair of his boxers in a corner), but he was still missing a t-shirt, a good pair of jeans with only one little rip in the knee, and a stray sock. One of the ones with cats on them, a favorite pair of his.

He did one more pass, catching a flash of red by chance. 

Cat sock. 

Red toe of the aforementioned cat sock peeking out from under the lid of Eddie’s laundry basket. Bingo. Fucker must have gotten tossed in accidentally with something of Eddie’s. Trying not to feel like he was being invasive, he lifted the lid and peered in, reaching for the sock and immediately catching another shirt of his sitting on top. One he hadn’t even noticed he was without, the Kinks shirt. He furrowed his brow, picking out his sock and shirt and finding the missing jeans below. 

They’d just done laundry. How long had Eddie thought he was going to stay? 

That thought made him feel a little queasy without reason, so he did his best to quiet it as he extracted his things from the basket. It was such a tame gesture, but something about the fact that Eddie had already started cleaning up after him and integrating their laundry struck him. He shook his head, shaking thoughts, shaking off the smell of Eddie’s fabric softener. His VHS player was still sitting lopsided on the desk, cord trailing limply to the ground. Richie made quick work of stuffing it back into its case and slung it over his shoulder. He made a final pass of the room looking at and for nothing but his own misplaced items, jammed the remainder of his things in his bag in the living room, and hitched one backpack strap onto his free shoulder. Headed out to toss his bags back in his car. Dragged himself back inside, back to the couch, back to fold up his blanket and shake out his pillow. Just a few last grateful touches. 

Eddie had failed to mention what time he’d be back, so Richie had to risk Eddie coming home to an empty apartment while he was out on his walk. As much as Richie wanted to avoid that, he needed to get out for even a moment. He scanned the living room once it was devoid of his things. Eddiespace. Save the cans and a few new stains, there were no lasting signs of last night’s football afterparty shindig, but Richie did his best to gather up the trash and dab at a splotch on the carpet. Once he was paying attention, he could see little traces of Eddie’s habitation in the cramped apartment. Namely the unsettled looking cleaning supplies jammed into corners but looming in the peripherals. A stray placemat sitting crooked on the counter, bumped out of place. The neatly tied trash bag from a couple days ago waiting to be taken out, indicating a moment of fed-uppedness which stopped just before the door. Richie smiled. He could picture Eddie now. 

_I will put the overflowing trash neatly into a bag and tie it up to suppress the smell, sure, but I will not take it to the dumpster. I’ve done it the past two times. The foot has come firmly down, misters._

Richie took the trash out on his way out, all of it, and started off on his walk in whichever direction looked even vaguely familiar. 

He wanted to grab a box of cereal for Eddie before he got back. He’d finished the last of his that morning. Plain cornflakes.

He was glad to be out in the fresh air in his old jacket, cold as it was. It felt crisp, it felt refreshing combing through his hair and gently erasing the ghostly sensation of Eddie’s hands running through it in the dark. As much as he wanted to cling to that, he knew well enough why he had to let it go.

Eddie was quite used to being stiff and uncomfortable, but the longer he sat in his little office chair, the deeper his body ached in a way completely unrelated to his posture. Class had been fine; he was a little too sleep deprived and delirious to pay attention or so much as produce one original thought the whole time, but he was fairly alert by the time he was padding up to the school office for a short shift between classes. He gave himself stress headaches all the time, mistook being hungry for being nauseous on the daily, but it was obvious even to him that he was actually off. One of the Registrar ladies had actually asked if he was feeling alright when he’d come in, and he’d given her as warm a smile as he could and reassured her he was alright, just a little tired. Roommates kept him up after the football game again, you know how boys are. 

Just Tired, not feeling scooped out by a melon baller and too queasy to even sip on his water bottle. 

Every time he considered it having a connection to Richie he actually broke out sweating, realized he’d stopped typing. At one point he’d frozen up, stuck on a peculiar thought he did not want to examine, still and achy as Leo Sayer sang softly and cheerfully from the radio on one of the ladies’ desks. 

_But last night—_

_Absolutely not, Kaspbrak._

He had to keep pitching his brain forcefully back into the mind numbing task of repeatedly entering data in little boxes on his clunky little computer screen. Sometimes he mouthed the names and numbers aloud, forcing something physical to steer his brain in the right direction. This worked until he’d finished entering the stack of student info sheets, finished all the computer work to be done at the work study desk, and was forced to retreat to the cramped filing closet to be alone with his thoughts as he filed. He had a good stack of files to put back, hoping something even more mindless than birthdates and social security numbers would numb out his thoughts. Once or twice he found himself in the _T_ drawer, weirdly drawn to the back of the _To_ ’s, then shaking himself off. He did that, sometimes, he reassured himself. Looked for a Denbrough or a Hanlon, on one occasion actually finding a Beverly Marsh in the overstuffed _M_ drawer. Not _the_ Beverly Marsh, of course, but a file that made him smile and prompted a call to Chicago later that night just to tell her and catch up. This time he felt sticky and weird, confused as to why he was clinging to thoughts of Richie, not even Richie last night but Richie alone and probably bored to tears in his apartment. He tried to banish him entirely from his thoughts, but as Richie did in life, the bastard kept popping up. 

Eddie wondered why he’d stayed so long. It felt nice, in a way, that Richie was happy enough to be with him that he was bearing with his roommates and his lumpy couch and with Eddie himself, but he immediately made himself sick thinking he’d probably ruined that last night. He’d scolded himself enough the moment Richie had fled the room, up practically all night wracked with embarrassment and ringing himself out for whatever _that_ had been about, but he couldn’t help and feel stupid and panicky and _bad_ about it all over again. 

Eddie’s hands shook as he pulled the next file from his stack, staring blindly a little too long at the name on the sticker before deducing that it went in the _S_ drawer. 

Who the fuck did he think he was, slugging wine and falling asleep on the poor guy and effectively trapping him in bed with him? Eddie’s face glowed angry red as he picked through the seemingly endless stream of Smiths to find a Robert Smith, frustrated but not surprised to find several folders under that name. Richie hadn’t asked for any of that, just a place to stay while he figured some shit out. And Eddie had gone and gotten what, lonely? Curious? 

That word made him shake his head, as if physically trying to throw it from his mind. _Curious_. Eddie was curious about how many years it would take him to save up for a sports car, he was curious about whether or not that football team Bill liked was getting into the playoffs and whether Bill would host a Super Bowl party if they made it all the way, curious if it would rain tomorrow. He wasn’t— whatever else that would imply. 

_(This Robert Smith happened to be the third folder under Robert Smith.)_

Eddie was curious as to how much time was left in his shift, was curious as to whether things would feel awkward when he got back to the apartment. He felt like he should at least lie about it, if not address it directly. Touch on it, let Richie know he wasn’t crazy and yes, Eddie had been tired and tipsy and had maybe let his mind wander further than he ever would have sober, and, loathe as he was to admit it, he’d been a little curi—

He shook his head again, cursing. A stapled packet of papers slid off the top of his stack. He swiped it off the floor, burning. Robert Gray this time. He replaced it on top of the stack. He glared at the name at the top of page, peeking under it to the next file. Rodney Smith. These were alphabetized by last name; he’d done them all himself earlier. He pressed his mouth into a line and set Robert Gray aside for the time being, angry at himself for being distracted enough by last night to let that one slip.

He’d bring it up, but he wouldn’t quite admit anything as drastic as _curiosity_. He could easily play dumb, easily tell him he’d just been half dreaming and had simply forgotten he’d fallen asleep with Richie there and was just. Just. 

What? What was he implying? That he regularly fondled his comforter like it was another person in his bed and had accidentally given the same treatment to his poor friend because he was drunk? He wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t asleep either. And he felt feverish thinking that the case was the same for Richie, because it simply couldn’t have been. 

Eddie was a master of denial, but he could feel himself losing his grip. He set the stack aside and dealt with Robert Gray quickly, returning to business as usual and trying to get the rest of the Smiths and the Smithsons and the rest of the S stack taken care of. 

He stopped cold on a Swanson. 

Greta Swanson. 

_Greta_. 

A thought struck him like a mean left hook out nowhere, something Eddie tried particularly hard to forget. 

In high school, Eddie had skated by thanks to Mike and, unfortunately and surprisingly to himself and everyone else, Greta Bowie.

He’d hidden _those_ particular photos the moment he’d gotten back to the apartment with Richie, swallowing a bitter tinge of shame. He didn’t even know why he kept them, why he still held on to a handful of images of awkward teenage Eddie smiling timidly between a pack of girls grinning like sharks. Admittedly, they weren’t on display, but they burned a particular hole in the little pocket photo album that usually sat on his desk, now stuffed haphazardly into his sock drawer. Pictures he couldn’t throw out but which didn’t belong in plain sight, pictures of him and his mom, him and his aunts, him and Greta Bowie. Many a time had Mike tried to gently prod him into befriending literally anyone else, but Eddie either hadn’t picked up on his hints or had blatantly ignored them. Once the group had been pared down to Mike and Eddie, Mike was a rising football star, and Eddie was floundering. 

Suddenly very nearly alone, kicked out of the nest of comfort (and something like budding confidence) his friends had provided for him through middle school much too early, Eddie had no armor. Greta had mean girl armor, don’t fuck with me armor. That was enough. 

It hadn’t been his choice in the beginning. He hadn’t sought out her company, and in fact was more than reluctant the first time she’d so much as spoken to him without intending solely to bully. If the Losers couldn’t stick together, the Losers could at least remember, and Eddie could note more than one incident in which Greta interacted with them, none of them positive. Maybe not the specifics, but he remembered that much. But with the Bowers gang taken care of one way or another (another detail he could no longer recall) and the original seven scattered to the winds, Eddie’s memory had started to slip. Until one afternoon he found himself braced on either side by scrunchies and hoop earrings and bubblegum and shit talk, walking down the hall with Greta Bowie and the meanest group of girls he’d ever meet like he’d been doing it day in and day out his entire life. 

He’d been, for better or for worse, practically invisible in high school. There had been what felt like a pretty normal amount of bullying, nothing he wasn’t used to, but he’d been left out of all the drama of first loves and dating and heartbreak. Romantic heartbreak, at least. Again, for better or for worse. No one (save Mike) had looked at Eddie in a way that didn’t inspire spite or cruelty or, thankfully, cool indifference. 

He wasn’t really much to look at anyway, he’d always figured. He was never very tall, he didn’t have much of a growth spurt so much as steadily keeping a few inches behind what felt like every other boy in his grade, he was plain. Once he realized the way you dressed could factor in greatly to the particular way you were bullied, he made sure he dressed plainly. The Easter colored polos and bright shorts were abandoned for dull t-shirts, jeans, sneakers. The fanny pack became a ziplock bag hidden away in his backpack. Short, skinny, dark hair, dark eyes, plain: not much to look at, and he reassured himself that was best. 

Through some cruel twist of fate which felt like the universe trying to make them as miserable as humanly possible, Mike and Eddie hadn’t shared one lunch period or class through all four years of high school. And there were only two different lunch periods. Still, no dice. Stan had been there the first two years, but he was in advanced classes. Eddie had not. Freshman year Stan had been in Mike’s lunch period and had made a charming, lovable, and nerdy addition to Mike’s varsity jacket clad table. Sophomore year he ate lunch in one of the math rooms with a favorite teacher and a gaggle of mathletes Eddie couldn’t dream of keeping up with. 

So Eddie told himself for a long time that he really enjoyed slipping out the back of the cafeteria and onto the patio with his tin lunchbox (packed lovingly and always with aching paranoia by his mother each morning) even on the coldest of Maine winter days. He told himself he was perfectly content to sit alone at his own rusty picnic table. He told himself the view of the muddy football field was scenic, that the birds squawking at him and taking turns trying to pull a fast one and steal his pretzel sticks was nothing short of entertaining, and that hearing some random group of kids laugh together inside didn’t sting him in a way even the bitter January winds couldn’t. 

Until one day, and by the grace of God he did not understand how, he was inside, he was at a full table, he was being offered a spare clementine by a girl who had once actually spat in his face. Eddie seemed to forget in that moment sitting at his kitchen table at 13, more hurt than he cared to admit, painstakingly scratching at his plaster cast with a red Sharpie. 

Greta, much like any good vulture, had seen a wounded animal and swooped down first. At that point, achingly lonely as he was, Eddie hadn’t stood a chance.

Junior year, Eddie discovered the term _fag hag_ . He’d had much meaner and more creative insults flung at him and written on his locker and spat with varying degrees of venom in his face, and really tried not to let them bother him, seeing as they didn’t apply. His name was Eddie, it wasn’t Flamer or Faggot or Fairy as so many of the other boys seemed to think, he knew that well enough, but something strange happened the day Susan Smart called Greta Eddie’s _fag hag_. Something about involving someone else in that kind of name calling made it more real. 

Greta had been a strange sort of protective over Eddie at some points, sure. She’d bite back when someone shouldered Eddie a little too hard in the hallway, sure, but wasn’t all too committed to keeping his name and some choice words out of people’s mouths. Greta was protective over him, not really because Eddie was her friend, but because Eddie was hers to shoulder and name call and pick apart his confidence from the inside out. He remembered laying in bed one night after Stan had moved away and Mike was as busy with sports as ever, having just set his book down and turned off his light, awake and wondering whether his new buddy Greta hadn’t been saying the exact same things about him as everyone else at Derry High. He hadn’t been able to shake the thought, cold and clammy and worried to death that maybe that was the case. That maybe he couldn’t really trust anyone.

Sometimes, even at 21 and far away from 16 and Derry, he still fretted and hurt about it. 

Susan Smart had been one of Greta’s so-called friends (if any of the people she hung around could really be considered friends) who had, in some fit of teenage fury fueled by something Eddie now couldn’t remember for the life of him, stolen his backpack out of his hand and dumped its contents into a reeking trash bin before he’d had a second to stop her. Lunch, homework, shameful inhaler and all. He wasn’t entirely useless in standing up for himself, although considerably weaker at that phase in his life, but in the moment he’d been rendered momentarily still and silent. She spoke before he’d had a chance to think whether to just cut his losses and dig through the trash or to try something else, and Eddie’s brain took several precious seconds to compute. Her snide voice was still clear in his head years later.

_“What? You won’t do shit, not without your fag hag here to save your ass.”_

Greta was out sick with the flu that day. And Eddie _hadn’t_ done shit. He was a smidge too shocked and confused, a smidge too embarrassed, a smidge too afraid she was dead right even if he wasn’t sure at all what she meant. There were two words he knew, one he was a little too familiar with, screamed at him but targeting Greta, who was clearly the one not there to save his ass, but intending to hurt him. Greta was the hag in this situation, he realized after a moment, and it became clear what that made him. 

Eddie learned the same way about the term _beard_ . _Skirt_. And so on. Until Eddie wasn’t doing shit again and again, not so much as shrugging it off and rolling his eyes and carrying on with his day, Eddie was merely padding numbly a few steps behind Greta and her untouchable posse and trying to simply make it through high school. 

As long as he didn’t give them any reason to believe they were right about what they said about him, as long as he was the pet of the untouchable girls, he would make it through. 

There had been one nice boy, Eddie was pretty sure he was in the choir, who asked Eddie one afternoon as they were leaving biology why the hell Eddie hung out with such mean girls. He said Eddie seemed nice, he said it didn’t seem like Greta and her witches treated him very well. Feeling trapped in the doorway, books clutched tightly to his chest, stared down by a very gentle and genuinely concerned face, Eddie didn’t have an answer. He never had an answer whenever Mike, gentle as he was about it, asked him the same thing. 

Eddie thought about that boy every once in a while. He couldn’t remember his name, all he could recall in detail was that he was lanky in an awkwardly endearing sort of way and had blue eyes. Maybe he’d seen him once outside of class, he couldn't remember. He didn’t want to. 

Eddie stared blankly at Swanson comma Greta Mary and wished he could organize his memory like the file room, tucking things away and only retrieving them when he actually wanted to. He hadn’t wanted to think about Greta Bowie, about how much _fag hag_ hurt him despite being about her, but that file had slipped off a high shelf and landed on its spine, flopping wide open at his feet, containing an onslaught of fear and insecurity and _fag_ he did his best to forget about, _actively_ did his best not to think about despite his brain threatening to bring it up day in and day out, every time someone cast him a sideways look, every time he so much as gestured in a certain way, every time he walked into a doorframe because he caught the eye of some tall boy with dark hair cracking a joke with his friends and his stomach swooped in a certain kind of way and startled him. 

_Swanson. Sw, second drawer of S. Behind Stuckey, Swan. Donald Swanson. Greta Swanson, behind Donald Swanson, in front of Charles Sweenie._

Eddie tucked the file away and stood there, looking without seeing at the open drawer, heart thrumming in his ears, scanty cereal breakfast churning in his gut. For a day where he wanted to think about nothing, where he’d wanted to get caught up in filing and relax and deal with the overwhelming _all this bullshit_ later, he sure as hell did a fuckall job of thinking of anything and everything to force him to overthink. Maybe he should put that one on his resume. 

_Work Study position in University Office of the Registrar, 1994-present_

_Job responsibilities include: Alphabetizing, organizing, documenting, filing, overthinking. Proficient in Microsoft Excel._

And at some point, when he’d filed a Yard comma Cody, it was noon, it was time to go to his next class. And once he’d made it through that, distracted and bothered and tapping the eraser of his pencil rapidly against his thigh, wondering how he could postpone the inevitable, it was time to go home. It was time not to address directly, but to quickly apologize for and just recognize, if anything, that things had gotten a little weird, and that it wouldn’t happen again. That they could call dibs on the living room and watch a movie on the couch tonight, that Richie was, of course, still welcome in his bed once Eddie went to class so he didn’t permanently injure his back on that stupid lumpy couch, that nothing had to change and it was fine and it happened and _whatever_ Richie please never mention it again. Time to mention that Richie was welcome to stay as long as he kept his promise and fessed up to his parents once he left, that he actually would return to Boston to tie up any loose ends before heading home, that he had to reassure Eddie that everything was fine and nothing was different and no one was _curious_ about jack shit and they could file that away and return to business as usual and why would it be weird ever, Eddie, what would come between us, we’ve been such good buddies for so long, Eddie Spaghetti, what would ruin that? 

God, so much as one friendly Eddie Spaghetti thrown his way would actually make him feel normal and better, and that really spoke to how fucked he was feeling about all this. 

The living room was Richie-free when Eddie entered, trying not to feel so trembly in the knees. The living room was also mess free (to a suspiciously _Richie_ level of mess free, which meant effort put toward some tidiness with some oversights on some of the messes), as was the kitchen. The trash had been taken out. The Trashmouth, it seemed, was also out. 

Richie was not in Eddie’s bedroom, Richie was not in Eddie’s bathroom, Richie was in fact nowhere to be found, and Eddie was startled to notice how far his stomach sank when this fact hit him. Richie’s deodorant and toothbrush were missing. It was all Eddie could do to stand there and stare at the sink, finding a singular dark hair, longer and curlier than his, sad and wet in the bowl of the sink. 

On a typical day, this would have grossed him out at least incrementally. But it made him sad. A stupid gross Richie hair sitting pathetically in his sink, in fact, after all his mental and emotional gymnastics and severe lack of sleep in the past 12 hours, made him worry for a split second that he might just cry.

He jolted and yelped sharply when the front door banged open, heart and stomach quickly shooting up far higher than where they belonged in his body. He recovered quickly as he could and turned on his heel to find a red faced and windswept Richie, looking nearly as startled as Eddie. 

“I thought you left,” Eddie admitted immediately, surprised at how relieved he sounded. 

Not upset, perhaps surprised, Richie looked uncharacteristically lost for words for only a moment. He shook a box in his hands like one would catnip. “Cereal.” Eddie blinked at him. Richie clarified. “I ate all your cereal, numbnuts, so I got you another box. I don’t know why you eat like an old woman with severe digestive issues, but here. More bran for you.” 

Eddie stared. 

“What, can you not eat the generic brand? I promise it don’t bite, no matter what your mama told you.” He shook the box again. “Jesus, Eds, you look like you’re about to pass out. I know I’m ugly, but is it really that bad?” 

“I just need to g— lunch. Eat.” Eddie shook his head, starting out of the bathroom and immediately shoulder checking the door frame. He bounced back and cussed, rubbing his arm as he ducked past Richie, heading straight for the kitchen. He was pretty sure he still had sandwich meat. Was he out of bread? No, he was fine. “Sandwich?” 

“Sandwich who?” 

“Sand- you want a sandwich or not?” 

It felt dire that he slap two sandwiches together immediately. Eddie heard Richie chuckle as he clattered around in the kitchen, frantic for no reason. The sound grated on him, making him feel laughed at. 

“ _What_?” he snapped over his shoulder, face pink, a butter knife slathered in mustard and poised dangerously over one slice of bread. 

Richie held up his cereal box in defense as if Eddie was about to start practicing his knife throwing. “Easy now, Sparky, I will gladly take a panic sandwich since you’re making ‘em.” 

Eddie seemed to have ticked down a couple notches once they were settled at the counter, munching away on sandwiches. Richie didn’t even want to ask what was on it. Hell knew what Eddie considered decent sandwich ingredients. Richie was just hoping he didn’t bite into a damn fish oil pill. 

“So,” Eddie started. And what a great start. Richie had to sit there and endure the ensuing silence for far too long, sandwich half lifted to his mouth, jaw slightly slack. He raised his eyebrows and Eddie continued, clearing his throat. “Um— Stan’s in Florida. With Mike.” 

“Yeah,” Richie said, eyeing him. That was clearly not what he was about to say. “I think he’s actually driving back up today. Told me his dad let him borrow his fancy new cellphone in case he got lost, told me to give him a ring if I’m bored so he can try it out.” 

“Oh,” Eddie said. He searched Richie’s face, offering no more.

Richie drummed his fingers on his top slice of bread. “You really are the most engaging conversationalist I have ever been blessed to have lunch with, Spaghetti Man. Riveting stuff here, alert the presses—”

“You know, you don’t have to be a prick all the time.”

“Don’t I?” Richie tensed up as Eddie searched around the table for something to toss. God, he was glad he’d gotten rid of all the bottles. He held his sandwich in front of his face as a shield as Eddie balled up a napkin in one hand, bracing for a very light impact which never came. He peeked over the crust, finding Eddie resolutely still clutching the napkin, gaze boring into him. Richie really did resent the levels of intensity he could reach with those big brown cow eyes sometimes. “What? Come on. You were poised to throw it a second ago, let me have it. I probably deserve it.” 

“I thought you actually couldn’t stand me sometimes. When we were kids.” 

Richie couldn’t help but wonder why the hell Eddie chose the times he did to bring things up. As if Richie’s brain and heart hadn’t been in enough trouble fretting over him today. He lowered his sandwich back to his plate, jaw slack. He closed it. “What the _hell_?” 

“What?” 

“ _Why?_ ” 

Eddie looked at him, doe eyed, as if it was obvious. Little prick. “I thought I annoyed the _shit_ out of you.”

Despite it all, Richie had to fight a grin. It was a losing battle. “Well you _did_.” 

Eddie looked at him blankly. 

Richie really did think he loved him. His heart ached. “I think sometimes you could absolutely out-annoying me. It was kinda comforting. You drove me up a fucking wall, that’s how I knew there was no way you’d get tired of me.”

Eddie shifted in his chair as if about to stand up, standoffish. “Now wait just a fucking second—“

“Why would you think I couldn’t stand you?” 

Eddie’s face burned. “I don’t— I don’t know, Richie, you picked on me like no other—”

“You know for a fact I was not picking on you, you and I were just—”

Eddie raised his eyebrows when he paused, arms folded tightly on the counter behind his barely touched lunch. “What?” 

Richie flicked through his brain for a word. “Rambunctious.” 

Eddie’s eyebrows sank, darkening his gaze. Richie wondered if he could use those babies to communicate without saying a word. Eddie eyebrow language. “We were rambunctious.” His voice was flat. 

“Yeah, Eds, do I have to sit here and explain our whole dynamic to you?” He was talking with his hands now, filling space while his head tried desperately to make sense of this conversation. “We were actually comfortable with each other, dude, that’s why we were cool busting each others chops, or at least I’d like to think so.” 

Eddie looked guilty. “I know that—”

“Well you coulda fooled me, Doc.” 

Eddie drew his elbows in close to his sides, stiffly pointing toward Richie with both hands. “Look, Rich, I dunno.” Another great start. “When I think back on it too hard—”

“Well stop doing that.”

His hands softened. “What?”

“Stop thinking back so hard on it, you drive yourself fucking bonkers.” Richie finally took another bite of his sandwich, getting down to the crust. “You were like, oneamybestfriends, it’s simple as that.” He spat it out quickly to glaze over the fact that it really wasn’t at all. 

Eddie didn’t say anything to that. Richie finished up his sandwich, stacking up the crusts in a little pile in the middle of his plate. Still no response. He risked a look at Eddie, who was looking down and to the left at nothing in particular, expression thankfully a little more relaxed. Hands folded neatly in front of him, Eddie swiped the pad of his thumb over a knuckle comfortingly. Richie’s fingers twitched.

“Sorry,” he finally said. There was a meekness in his his voice that Richie hated, much preferring Eddie’s spitfire and spite. 

Richie shook his head, reaching over to pat his wrist. He failed to fail to notice that he could probably easily cover both of Eddie’s clasped hands with one of his own and made sure to pull his hand back quickly as he stood. “Don’t be like that, you’re good.” 

Those stupid brown eyes were on him again, and something in Richie’s gut squirmed. 

“Eddie, we’re cool.” 

“You’ve never been cool a day in your life, trashmouth.”

Richie threw him a wink as he swiped his plate to take it to the sink. “At least you’ve got one thing right.” 

Eddie got up after a moment, standing next to him as he reached over for the dish soap. Richie lightly checked his hip and received an elbow to the ribs in response. What a fucking relief. Richie couldn’t help noticing that he could easily set his chin on Eddie’s head standing side by side like this. Just a little tilt up and he could do it. He could nest his nose in Eddie’s hair without adjusting at all. It was getting just a tiny bit shaggy, a little wing flipping out over one ear, another at the hairline at the back of his neck. Richie wondered if his hair was curlier when it was longer. He usually kept it tidy. Richie liked his bedhead, liked the way his hair stuck up at odd little angles like it had in his silhouette last night before he’d had a chance to fix it when Richie got up. He reached across Eddie, narrowly avoiding getting his sleeve caught in the stream of water, and fit his plate into the drying rack. Eddie did the same a moment later, stepping back and seeming to look Richie over for only a moment. Richie was pinned there, captivated, before Eddie dropped his gaze to his sneakers, black and scuffed against the off-white linoleum of the kitchen floor. 

If he was going to leave, he’d better duck out on that high note. Only a relative high note in comparison to the whole fiasco that was the last 24 hours. Richie idly pulled out his keys to spin them around one finger, and Eddie instantly tensed again, face tilting up considerably to look Richie in the eye. Richie could tell when that bothered him, when his height made Eddie feel small (and in turn made Richie feel like a stupid giant); this wasn’t one of those times. Right now it felt like Eddie was just the right size to fit against his chest, like Richie’s arms were built specifically to wrap around him and hold him. Like he was meant to be tall enough to nose into his hair and maybe lay a little peck on his forehead, if Eddie would allow it. 

Richie loved him, he thought. His stomach hurt with it. 

“I gotta hit the road, Spaghetti Man.” 

Eddie sputtered, all softness leaving him. “Right now?” He was incredulous. He spread his wet hands wide. “ _Right_ now?” 

“I know my welcome’s been long overstayed; I’ve already given you your parting gift in the form of a generous and thankful cereal offering and you fed me properly one last time, so yes right now.” 

_Unless—_ no. He really couldn’t stick around, if he was allowed one more night he may never leave. Then what would they do. 

The way Eddie looked at him made him bite his tongue. Richie rarely did that, but there it was. Literally. His teeth sank into the meat of his tongue for a moment. He thought he could feel his pulse in it, taste the iron below the skin. He wanted to drop everything and offer to go pawn a bottle of whisky off some senior in the laundry room and get them both comfortably tipsy and set up to watch another movie in Eddie’s bed. He’d dig out the whole beast of a VHS player from his trunk and lug it back up the stairs in a heartbeat; he’d jam himself into that tiny sliver of space between Eddie and the wall and not think to complain once. He’d clean out the cereal aisle in the local grocery store if it meant he could stay. 

“Alright,” Eddie said, squaring his shoulders as if being brave. The word clattered around in Richie’s head. There was a certain kind of disappointment on Eddie’s face, not really a pout, something generally upset without being childish. Upset with reason, with gravity. 

Richie spread his arms, shrugging his shoulder when he felt his jacket slip a little. Eddie hesitated for barely a second before rushing into him, both of them grunting when they slapped arms around each other. His hair brushed Richie’s nose, and he was right. Locked in like puzzle pieces. 

He could feel the quick flit of Eddie’s heart against his ribs. He wasn’t nearly as skinny as he’d been as a kid, but Jesus. Richie could feel it wracking his narrow rib cage, dizzying. 

Richie thought back for a split second to last night, to finally actually feeling how the two of them fit together like that, and his brain instantly recoiled. He released Eddie a second too early; he saw a flash of embarrassment cross his face and instantly felt guilty about it. His voice came out scratchy, shoes feeling stupid heavy for canvas sneakers. They seemed to sink into the linoleum. 

“See you later?” 

“Alligator,” Eddie sighed, looking down, distracted. He seemed to not even notice he’d said anything, glancing up a moment later. That time Richie could tell he felt the difference in their heights, unsettling him. He saw it in the draw of his brow. The deep breath. Steadying. “You want me to walk your stupid ass to the car or do you think you can find it yourself?” 

“I might right manage, Master Edward.” Richie said, a bad stupid British lilt catching in his voice. Even he thought it sounded dumb. 

Eddie punched him lightly in the arm, not looking directly at him. Richie felt too much weight in the moment, his back feeling cold where the door glared at him. 

“Drive safe.” 

“Never. Pigs’ll fly first.” 

Richie got one last flash of Eddie eye contact, savoring that little flash of brown, before he was gone. There might have been some lingering touch, a hand on someone’s arm, asking not to go or begging for permission to stay, but by the time Richie was seated behind the wheel and faced with four whole parking violations under his wipers and a four hour drive, he was good as gone. 

Forty five minutes into the drive and a Rush album, so was everything from last night. Let go. Holding on too tight left blisters. 

His back left tire exploded somewhere around Bridgeport.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> songs mentioned:  
> You Make Me Feel Like Dancing - Leo Sayer  
> Can't Smile Without You - Barry Manilow


	6. YOU CAN’T CALL SOMEONE ELSE AN IDIOT FOR NOT KEEPING JUMPER CABLES IN THEIR CAR IF YOU DO NOT, IN FACT, HAVE JUMPER CABLES IN YOUR CAR

**MONDAY: 5:03 PM**

“It’s for you.”

It had gotten dark fast, as if the afternoon was mourning Eddie’s sudden rediscovered loneliness in the wake of Richie’s departure. A storm was blowing in from the East, bringing with it a devastating overcast and more than a few unforgiving sheets of rain. Eddie had barely settled in to get some homework done when the apartment phone in the kitchen had rung. Greg had gotten to it first, but Eddie was tense and ready on the edge of the armchair seat in case he heard the telltale whine of Sonia Kaspbrak’s voice tinny on the other end of the line. He’d been up the moment Greg had so much as looked at him, despite not yet having heard her, assuming the worst. 

And it definitely could have been worse.

“ _Eddie_ , thank fuck, you beautiful bastard.” 

Richie, sounding genuinely relieved to hear him get on the line. Not a good sign. Good sign in that he wasn’t Eddie’s mother and one of her dreaded cloying _just checking in, Eddie Bear_ calls, but not a good sign in that Richie was a few hours shy of having arrived home safely. “Jesus, and here I thought I just finally got rid of you. Shouldn’t you still be driving? What happened?” Eddie turned his shoulder against the wall to shield the call from Greg, who was still lingering around the counter.

A gust of wind buffered the call on Richie’s end, scratching at Eddie’s ear. “My tire fucking blew up on me, I—”

“It _blew up_?” A cold drop of worry plunked into Eddie’s stomach. “Jesus Christ, are you okay?” 

“Well it didn’t blow up so much as just give out, it’s flat, I mean it popped, I’m fine,” he added, sniffling and swearing. “I made it to the shoulder and I found a payphone, I’m all good. Wetter than I’d prefer, but fine.” 

Right, the rain. Eddie glanced outside. It was only drizzling outside his apartment, but it could be worse wherever Richie was stranded. “Do you have a spare?”

Silence for a moment. Another sniff. “Yes?” 

“A spare tire, Richie.” 

“I have a spare, yeah.” 

“Are you crying?” 

“No, I’m fucking cold, I’m not crying.”

Realization dawned slowly on Eddie, bringing with it a strange sense of satisfaction in the fact that he was going to have to drive out in the rain to rescue his poor damsel. He had just gotten rid of Richie, yes, but this was truly a golden sort of opportunity here. “You don’t know how to change a tire, do you, Rich?” 

The sigh he breathed through the line was a defeated one. “Don’t blame me, my dad’s a dentist.” 

“So dentists don’t know how to change a tire? And don’t teach their kids to change tires? Dentistry and tire changing ability cannot exist in the same household?” 

“You don’t have to kick me or Went while I’m down, can I have a little help or not?”

Maybe it did feel a little too pleasing to come to the rescue here. But Eddie would have time to gloat later. “Just figure out what mile-marker you’re at, I’ll come get you. And for the love of fuck at least try to get your feet and your head dry, you’re gonna catch a bitch of a cold.” 

Richie truly did look like some tragically drowned marsupial. All his clothes had glued themselves to his skin and his hair had flattened to his skull, making him look 10 pounds skinnier than he already was. Water kept dripping off the ends of his hair and onto his glasses, giving the illusion that he was melting as he frantically tore them off again to shake them off. Eddie couldn’t fathom why he’d chosen to wait outside his car in the pouring rain, lit hazily by his own hazards, but there he was, wet and relieved. Eddie pulled off the road in front of his car and patted around his backseat for his umbrella, realizing too little too late that it was still hanging on the peg by the door at his apartment.

A great omen to start this venture. Swearing, he pulled up the hood of his raincoat and ducked out of his car, immediately swamped by the downpour. Richie met him halfway, shivering with his arms wrapped around himself in that stupid good-for-nothing denim jacket.

“Christ, I should have brought you a towel.” 

“I’m sorry,” Richie started immediately, wiping a stream of water off his glasses. They looked steamed up and practically useless, and Eddie couldn’t ignore a little pang of sympathy. “This sucks, man.”

Eddie patted him solidly (wetly) on the sleeve of his jacket, avoiding those sad baby blues. They had work to do. “Pop your trunk, come on.” Richie did so, and Eddie rounded the car only to be faced with a frankly impressive pile of seemingly random junk. “What the fuck happened back here?” After a quick scan of the general chaos, he caught sight of the jack sitting by itself jammed up behind the taillight. Poor thing looked like it was cowering, shielding itself from the piles of crap tumbleweeding around the trunk. He handed it to Richie, who tried not to look at it like it was from another planet as Eddie scrabbled around for the lug wrench. “It looks like your childhood bedroom exploded in here.” 

“I’m moving out of my dorm soon, it doesn’t make any sense to keep dragging my shit back up there just to put it back in the car in like a month.” 

“This is _garbage_ , Richie, just throw it out.” He picked up a Pringles can, refraining from tossing it at Richie only so as not to litter. Garbage. Garbage and laundry, apparently, Eddie discovered. He wrinkled his nose as he flicked a pair of boxers out of his way, not pausing to wonder how those got there. He pushed everything to the sides of the trunk to get to the wheel well, finding the wrench and the spare nestled in where they were supposed to be. He handed Richie the wrench and started to lug out the tire, wincing as grease smeared the sleeve of his blue slicker.

Near shouting over the wind, Eddie directed Richie through setting up the jack as he crouched down to look at the tire in question, spare resting close by. There was a sizable tear in the sidewall, so he hadn’t hit anything dead on, but it looked like the damn thing had been ready to burst for a while and finally went with a bang. “For the love of God, pay attention to your damn tire pressure, man,” he’d mumbled, more to himself as Richie worked the crank. Eddie snagged Richie’s collar at one point and hauled him closer to the car when a semi clipped too close to the shoulder, dousing them both in filthy water. 

Oddly, that felt like nothing new. 

Once Richie had it jacked up, Eddie made quick work of busting the lugnuts off the tire, a couple times having to stand up and kick the wrench to get enough leverage, unaware of Richie looking up at him with awe from where he knelt on the pavement. Richie hadn’t even noticed he scraped his knuckles on the street a few times.

This may not have been exactly how it looked in the movies, but Eddie was a knight in drenched armor if Richie had ever seen one. Something about him in the light blue jacket with his dark hair hanging wet in his face, backlit with silver as raindrops bounced off him, really was some kind of cinematic masterpiece. He only hoped Eddie wasn’t actually pissed about having to come all the way out there for him. 

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Eddie growled, popping off the last bolt. 

So Richie could only hope. He’d been desperate, and flagging down truckers and commuting dads hadn’t exactly worked. He’d wondered briefly if he was as cute and tidy-looking as Eddie if that tactic would have worked out better for him, but here was cute and tidy-looking Eddie kneeling on the side of the highway and changing the damn tire for him anyway. Never judge a book. 

“I can’t believe your parents chose to raise you in the fucking midwest and you don’t know how to change a tire. You’re really useless as a hick, you know.”

Eddie slid the busted tire off and rolled it toward Richie, who stood up to receive it, finding it much heavier than he’d thought. He managed to keep from getting knocked around by it, if just barely, and sort of rolled it off toward the ditch between the north and south sides of the highway. There it could reside, he figured. A grassy highway grave. Kudos, comrade. “There’s nothing I can do about it now, Eds,” he muttered. He was grateful, yes, he’d be eternally grateful for this, but he could do without some of the nagging. He knew he couldn’t change a tire. He was well aware. Shrugging it off, he propped the spare up to roll it toward Eddie so he could pop that baby on, catching a look on Eddie’s face. Uh oh. “What?”

“That doesn’t look good.” 

Eddie leaned the spare against the frame of the car for a moment, running his hand around the treads, and Richie remembered for a moment watching him scrap around his garage and fuss over his prized (and never quite finished) soapbox car. It was a sweet moment back in the haze that was the summer of ‘89, all sunshine and freckles and smiles and boasting about having saved up for new parts which Richie could never name in his dreams, but this was a whole different ball game. Eddie had a little smear of grease on his forehead, hair falling dark and damp over his wrinkled brow, eyes dark and intense as he hunched over the spare, fingers splayed and black with brake dust. Richie’s stomach did a little flip. Man, was this ever a blessing in disguise. If only it was summer now, maybe the heat would have gotten Eddie to roll up his sleeves past his elbows and mop his brow with his collar. _Jeez_.

“Richie, did you hear me? I don’t think you can drive on this.” 

Richie had to snap himself back into the reality of the fact that he was currently at Eddie’s mechanic mercy on the side of the road. “I what?” 

“Look.” 

Richie crouched down next to him, praying Eddie wasn’t about to say something to make him feel like even more of an idiot than he already did. But lo and behold, that there looked like a problem. The rubber of the tire was pulling away from the rim in several places, looking cracked and weary in a way that was none too promising. “Oh, shit.” Richie thumbed at the ancient rubber. It felt crumbly. “Prognosis negative, Doctor K?”

Eddie hummed disapprovingly and hauled the tire up to fit it on the pegs, digging in his jacket pocket for the lug nuts. He fit each of them on the pegs and finger tightened them. “I’m gonna put it on, but I really don’t think it’s gonna hold up.” He looked up at Richie, worriedness in his brown eyes nearly making him have to pause to catch his breath. “How much longer did you have to drive?” 

“Two and a half hours, give or take,” Richie admitted, feeling worse and worse about this by the moment. Longer in the rain, the low visibility was going to force him to drive the speed limit, or worse, a smidge below. Not that he could really dash around on a donut anyway, let alone a busted donut. “Are you sure it’s that bad?” He knew he needed to get out of this man’s damn hair. His stomach twisted, worried this was quickly and accidentally becoming Eddie’s problem. 

Richie watched with rapt attention as Eddie started to tighten the bolts with the wrench then started to crank the car back down. He should get flats more often, a part of him thought. The part that was worried about being a giant stupid inconvenience here scolded him for that.

Eddie grunted as he checked the bolts one more time, leaning his weight into the wrench. Satisfied, he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and only further smeared the grease streak there. Richie was dying to wipe it off for him, instead standing up to admire his handiwork. Give him space. Woudja look at that. New tire, jack all folded up, 

pink faced and dripping Eddie, 

yowza. 

“I don’t think I trust it.” The look he gave Richie was nearly apologetic. Richie had to admire him for that, for first of all letting him stay all that time in the apartment, dealing with everything that brought, then coming out here to get him out of this mess and looking _apologetic_ of all things when Richie’s stupid donut was the problem.

“Should I start looking for a hotel?”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Eddie slapped a hand to Richie’s arm as he stood, nose wrinkling when he brushed gravel off the wet knees of his jeans. The shins were soaked through.“Just start it up, we’ll try and get it somewhere safer before it gets dark.” He sighed, although not seeming disappointed. Merely tired. He did do most of the heavy lifting there. “If it doesn’t hold up, just come back to my place, we’ll figure it out tomorrow.” 

Richie could have kissed him out of gratitude, but maybe that call was best not made now. He merely nodded, shoving the tools loosely back into the trunk and slamming it before clambering into the driver’s seat, almost slipping on the way. He’d been avoiding getting his soaking wet ass into the actual car, but it was inevitable at that point.

He turned the key

Huh. Richie punched the hazard button to turn them off, tried again. 

A telltale and stomach dropping series of clicks, no roar of ignition.

He pawed around the console aimlessly, finding his hand on the switch for the lights, finding the lights not switched all the way off. 

His stomach sank to his chilled toes. 

That little man in the stupid rain boots was gonna kill him dead.

He cracked the door open, finding Eddie standing close by, expression making it clear that he understood what was going on. “ _Tell me_ you have jumper cables.” His shoulders were jammed stiffly up to his ears, hood bowing out around his face. 

Richie looked at him, withering under his gaze. “I— you don’t—” he paused. Eddie’s gaze bore into him. “Do you not—?” Richie swallowed, feeling the Voice coming on before he could stop it. Call it coping. “ _Cables_? We don’t need no stinking— 

Richie was sure they could hear the we slap Eddie’s palm made against his own grease streaked forehead six miles in either direction even over the roar of the storm. 

The ride back was a little tense. It had gotten too dark to try any other option save retreat. Eddie tried not to look at Richie, wet and tired and guilt ridden in his passenger seat. He used to keep towels in his car, didn’t he? He thought back to the time Julie had insisted he drive down to her parents’ lake house with her then insisted they bring the family border collie on the trip, whom they’d transported back home in Eddies back seat, sopping wet. The smell lasted for a month. He should have learned then to bring at least one godforsaken towel in his car. And a spare umbrella. 

And fucking _jumper cables_. 

Not that it would have helped; that donut was done for. Maybe it was the principle of the thing. 

“Poor Streetfighter,” was all Richie had mumbled as they clambered, tired and soaking and shivering, into Eddie’s car. 

Eddie then learned that Richie had actually named his car Streetfighter, as she, to quote, “ _fought with these streets on the daily_ .” If Eddie hadn’t been so stiff and tired from doing all that work in the rain, he would have bonked him over his stupid curly head. Bitter-lovingly, maybe, but just hard enough to get across a nonverbal _dumbass_. 

Eddie insisted Richie take a hot shower once they got back to his place, bitching about how sick he was going to get wearing only drenched denim and flannel like that. And the stupid canvas shoes. Had Eddie looked a little stupid in his galoshes changing a tire? Maybe so. But was he going to catch his death? Think again.

Eddie sort of needed it, something to chew on and nag about that wasn’t the car situation, as that dead horse was well beaten. So he’d bitch about the cold. And catching Richie’s hand before he disappeared into the shower, Eddie pulled out some ointment from some unfathomable bag under the sink, noticing what almost looked like road rash on his knuckles. 

Once Richie was rinsed, dried, ointmented and changed, again borrowing Eddie’s flannel sweats and an old sweatshirt, Eddie set about figuring out what the fuck to do with him. It was around 9PM by then, both of them worn out from driving the hour and a half to the scene of the crime then back and slaving over the tire in the rain, and while Eddie was fine having Richie on his couch again for a couple hours more, it really was time he went home. He could tell this many nights without his own bed (Eddie decisively did not think about Richie in any other beds, thank you very much) were taking their toll. He looked like one homesick puppy, drying his glasses on the couch with Eddie’s pants hiked up to his mid-shin. 

Richie flapped out a little booklet rescued from the pocket in his jacket, frowning, and began to shove paper towels between the pages. A little phonebook. 

“Man, if you had that number for Mr. Uris’ cellphone I’d just send you home with Stan on his way back.”

For the first time since seeing Eddie pull up, Richie lit up. “Then you are going to be pleased as punch to hear what I have in this handy dandy little number.” 

Eddie had honestly been joking. New York and Boston were both sort of out of the way on Stan’s long trek back to Albany, but within the hour, Stanley Uris had set a new course for Eddie’s apartment. They’d caught him at a good time, and he honestly seemed excited just to be able to use the phone at all. 

“I thought I was only gonna be able to use this thing if my car broke down or to get hell from my mom if I took too long to get home, it’s kinda great to see it actually works,” he’d told Eddie. The signal was patchy at best and it sounded like Stan was speaking to them from underwater, but the fact that he was taking a cordless call from the side of the road was kinda cool in and of itself. Eddie wouldn’t geek out about it with Richie there, but maybe he could talk to Stan about the whole thing later. 

He was a few hours out yet, but had decided (with Richie’s help) to pick Richie up and spend the night at his dorm in Boston, then take the final leg home to Albany first thing in the morning. Eddie had no idea how he could stand driving for that goddamn long, all the way from Florida then pinballing all around the East, but leave it to Stanley to have the strangest stores of energy for the damndest things. 

“You’re a godsend, Stan the Man,” Richie told him before Eddie signed off and hung up, standing close enough so they could both hear on the kitchen phone. Eddie had to reach around him to hang the phone back on the wall, caging him in with his arm for a moment and feeling his face warm from the sudden closeness. They both paused for a moment, caught there, before Richie reached up to ruffle Eddie’s hair and slip past to diffuse the sudden tension. Eddie sagged against the counter, hating that new weirdness that kept cropping up since last night. 24 hours clearly wasn’t enough time to dispel that sense of _something is different now, watch your step_ which Eddie had hoped would just evaporate. 

So much for that.

“Lemme go get your stuff,” Eddie sighed, trying to make light. Richie’s spare pillow and blanket. He retrieved them from where they were still folded at the foot of his bed, not yet stuffed back in the closet, and handed them to Richie where he was already set up on the couch.

“Ah, my linens, thank ya kindly.” Richie bowed his head as he received them, crossing his legs and tucking them up underneath him as he spread the blanket over his lap. “Is it really bedtime already?” 

Bedtime. Couchtime for Richie. Eddie stood there, oddly conflicted, hands in the pockets of his sweats. He tried to shrug it off. “I figured I’d let you get comfortable.” In truth, Richie just looked wiped, as wiped as Eddie felt, and pillows and blankets and maybe

_maybe_

both of them together on the couch 

_just for a little while, not the whole night_

didn’t sound so bad. He sat down trepidatiously on the cushion farthest from Richie. There was a strange pang of want holding him captive in the living room. He should have retreated to his room to actually get some work done, homework having been interrupted, but something stronger was magnetizing him to this stupid couch. With this stupid shower damp vagabond of his with the scraped up knuckles. Want coupled with a cold creeping sort of fear, but he couldn’t pin down fear of what. Fear of the want, maybe, but he wasn’t sure how much sense that made and he didn’t want to examine it any further tonight. Eddie was tired.

“Are you also getting comfortable?” Richie threw both arms over the back of the couch and Eddie could sense the distance between the arm closest to him and his own shoulders. It was casual enough that Richie could just be stretching himself out, but he wanted to believe it was an invitation to sit even just a little closer. “You did say this morning we could maybe watch another movie.” 

But out here. In livingroomworld, where it was safer. Safer in the sense that there was no room for that _curiosity_ that had plagued Eddie last night, safe from any slip ups just in case Greg or Jeff happened to walk in on them. He could hear it too in the way Richie said it, playing safe. Playing casual. He wasn’t alone in that. He felt a lump in his throat, feeling weirdly like he was keeping up appearances. 

_Yeah, for who?_

Eddie’s head spun, maybe he was just exhausted. He should have taken a nap earlier in the day. He eyed the modest stack of VHS tapes piled on a shelf of the modest TV stand. “Yeah.” He looked at Richie, guilty again. Guilty without really knowing why he felt so damn guilty. “Let’s do that.”

“Thanks for all that, Eds. By the way.” Richie gestured losely. All that. All this. 

Eddie looked up at him, registering it. “You would have done the same for me.” That felt a little sappy. “Inconvenient as shit, sure, but you woulda,” he added. 

Words fell from Richie’s mouth as if dropping straight from his brain, no filter needed. “Very sexy of you to come change my tire for me, I dunno if I would have been able to stand watching you dig around in my engine if we had those cables. I don’t think you understand how exciting it was for me watching _Eddie Kaspbrak_ get his hands all dirty like that. You almost had me jumping _your_ cables, let me tell ya.” 

With the way Eddie stared at him, Richie worried for a moment that there had been a tad too much honesty in that last half-joke, spat out as quickly as it was. The split second silence was so uncomfortable for a moment that Richie actually cleared his throat, wishing not for the first time that day that he could just keep his big idiot mouth shut. 

“Beep— _Jesus_. If you fall asleep here, you might not wake up, and I hope you know it’ll be by my hand, Tozier.” 

Richie wanted to scream hallelujah when he heard that hint of a laugh behind Eddie’s tired voice, a tremor in it that betrayed the accusatory pointing finger and scrunched eyebrows. Richie beamed, reaching over to push at Eddie’s head. “I’d expect nothing less. I’d be honored.” 

Eddie swatted at him, still smiling. Little victories. He tried so valiantly to sober up his expression. “It’s still crazy fucking dangerous for you to be driving around without knowing how to change a stupid tire, you know that right? Especially when you’re making rounds all around the East Coast right now? And when you’re gonna have to drive halfway across the country to get home in a couple months? And used to, regularly?” 

“What are you, Eds, a cop?” 

Eddie smacked the top of Richie’s thigh, standing. “Come pick a movie, moron.” 

“Gladly, Officer Hardass.” 

They’d both sat down a little closer on the couch after getting up to decide on a movie and getting the TV set up to play it. Thank God. That tension still lingered, but it didn’t feel quite as pressing when they weren’t so obviously avoiding so much as touching. Eddie could remember pointedly when their thighs would touch on the couch in Stan’s basement, when their legs tangled in the clubhouse hammock, a certain burning awareness wherever there was contact. 

And right now, Eddie could handle a little burning awareness at one shoulder. But that was enough. 

He wasn’t paying any attention to the movie, only humming in kind acknowledgement every time Richie made a comment or laughed, trying to actually get comfortable. 

Richie was trying to settle, despite his thoughts chugging along a mile a minute. He felt bad that Eddie had housed him for so long, (felt bad about last night), felt bad about leaving, felt bad about Eddie having to come to his rescue, felt bad. Felt bad felt bad felt bad, felt Jesus fuck why the hell had his typically hippie-ass parents tried to raise him Catholic bad. 

And he wanted, more than anything, for Eddie to conk out on his shoulder again. It felt selfish, wanting anything more from him, but that would just solidify that they were fine. That they were actually cool, that Richie hadn’t fucked up so bad last night that Eddie would never be truly comfortable with him again. He talked and talked and talked through the movie, which wasn’t unusual, but this time spurred by nerves. Need to fill space, because it didn’t look like either of them could fill any physical space between them right now. No teasing tugs on hair or legs in laps or elbows to ribs tonight.

And no falling asleep on shoulders, apparently. Richie, drowsy, was considering sinking down a little to return the favor and pass out on Eddie for a little while when he noticed Eddie was nodding. 

And the moment he started nodding, Eddie decided it was too dangerous, sleep could allow that want to overpower that fear, and it was time to get up. Leave no chance. He yawned, loud and obvious and a little theatrical, and turned to Richie, trying not to let those tired baby blues get to him. Jesus. “I should just go lay down, I don’t wanna be a zombie when Stan shows up. And I’ve got this reading to do.” 

God, Richie wanted to card his fingers through his hair. Give him pre-bedhead. He looked stupid sweet, and looking at stupid sweet Eddie with determined, loyal, tire changing Eddie still in mind was screwing with Richie’s heart. And stomach. He gave him a tired smile. “Go get your beauty rest, sweet thang.” 

Maybe one elbow to the ribs was allowed. One each. Eddie started it, Richie was just answering, and then Eddie was retreating to his room. Door ajar. Richie could barely see him flicking through those cassettes he never got a good look at and setting up his Walkman before clambering back up into his bed. Richie thumped his head back against the couch, slumping. He still had a few empty hours before Stan was set to get there, and it was going to be all he could do to keep his brain as quiet as possible. Too loud thoughts sometimes ended up coming out his mouth.

**TUESDAY: 1:56 AM**

There was a Barry Manilow tape whirring in Eddie’s Walkman, headphones having slipped down around his neck. Richie could just barely hear it from across the room. Buried in his mountains of blankets, Eddie lay flat on the mattress, a tome of a book open on his chest. His thumb marked where he’d been reading, wedged between the spine and his body. Richie watched his head start to tip slowly to one side, mouth barely open. He rapped his sore knuckles gently against the doorframe. 

Barry sang on. 

_….feel sad when you’re sad, I feel glad when you’re glad. If you only knew what I’m–_

“Eddie.” 

Eddie snapped awake with a jerk, nearly knocking his book off his chest, a hand flying to the back of his head to make sure his hair wasn’t sticking up in the back. He blinked at Richie, standing against the doorframe. 

“Stan’s here.” 

“What time is it?” 

Richie checked his watch. “It’s like 2 am.” 

“Does he wanna come in?” 

Stan, pleasant surprise, leaned into view, looking tired. His usual buoyant head of curls seemed deflated. Eddie figured that long of a drive would do it. Eddie felt a surge of relief at seeing him, glad both that he made it safe and that he was actually here. It had been too long. “Getting your beauty rest in, Eddie?” 

Eddie marked his book with a scrap of paper on his desk and swung his legs onto the floor. 

…. _cant laugh, and I can’t sing. I’m finding it hard to do anyth—_

The tape squealed as Eddie paused it, pulling his headphones off and raking his hands through his hair. He smiled, looking his friend over. Cardigan sweater, nice shorts, tall socks. Floridawear. Still Stan. “Yeah, Stanley, yourself?” 

“Not tonight, apparently.” 

Eddie felt bad, but he knew Stan wouldn’t have agreed to come pick Richie up if he really couldn’t. Kind as he was, the man had his limits. He stood, wincing as he realized he’d fallen asleep in his jeans in anticipation of Stan’s arrival. At least he wasn’t in his boxer shorts. Stanley opened his arms, looking expectant, and Eddie shook off some of his drowsiness to go give the man a damn hug. Fuck knew he deserved it, generous bastard. 

“Good to see you, stranger.” 

Eddie thumped him on the back, pulling back and looking between him and Richie, who had donned a usual little grin. “Do you guys want some coffee for the road?” 

He looked at Richie, who looked away, then to Stanley. “Nah, I’m sleeping the whole way.” He nudged Stanley’s arm and waited for a smile that never came. 

Stan gave him a cool, even look. “I want to tell you that you’re driving half the way, but I can’t say I trust you with my car.” 

“That’s very wise of you, Stanny boy,” Richie admitted. 

Eddie must have looked like a total sap for a moment, standing there staring at the two of them. Richie was still taller by a couple inches, and Stan, despite a light tan across his face and a slightly sunburnt nose, still looked exactly as he had the last time Eddie had seen him. Just taller. It felt good seeing the two of them in the same place, _three_ of them in the same place, look at that, Richie and Stanley and Eddie all under the same roof, and for a desperate moment Eddie almost asked Stan if he wanted to stick around for the rest of the night just to keep them all together for a couple hours more. 

He snapped out of it when Stanley spoke up, voice bright and posture impeccable despite all those hours spent in his car. 

“I’ll take a coffee, Eddie, if you don’t mind.”

One cup of coffee wasn’t a whole lot of time to catch up, and Stan and Richie had to get going shortly. Eddie looked a little frantic and a little sad in his own way, and it nearly broke Richie’s heart watching how tightly he held onto the back of Stan’s cardigan when he hugged him goodbye at the door. Stan jokingly tried to pick him up and Eddie made a whole big fuss of it, which, in turn, encouraged Richie to try the same thing. And he actually got Eddie’s feet off the ground for only a second. He hoped he wasn’t imagining how tightly Eddie held onto him regardless, despite the subsequent bitching. It was half hearted and fussy and every bit what Richie needed to finally send him off. 

Richie chucked the backpack of essentials he’d taken from his car (and his grocery bag filled with rain-wet clothes, thanks Eddie) on top of Stan’s bags in the backseat and piled in, the both of them filled with a renewed sort of energy that came from seeing each other again. 

From Stanley’s reports, Mike was thriving in Florida. 

“Can you believe he was talking about sticking around in Derry instead of going off to college?” Stanley shook his head, grinning in his pensive sort of way. “Man would have been miserable, he loves it down there.” 

“I wanna go see him sometime—” 

“You’d fry to a crisp, look at you.” Stan poked at Richie’s pale cheek and Richie laughed. 

“You didn’t do that much better, Rudolph.” 

“You should be jealous. I didn’t think there was a place on Earth that’s that nice in November. It’s kinda rainy at night, but we were on the beach every day we could be.” 

“How many cougars did you guys pick up? The two of you must have made a hell of a hot pair. Be honest, what was it like getting wet and wild with somebody’s granny?” 

Stan blushed despite himself as he barked at Richie for that one, both of them ending up laughing. 

Boston felt so much closer when Richie wasn’t driving alone and wasn’t, in fact, driving. They passed poor Streetfighter on the way, making it final that he was headed home, Stan giving her a solemn salute as they left her in the mist. 

Richie couldn’t even begin to worry about how he was going to take care of that mess, despite Stanley trying to bring it up. He’d figure it out, he decided, trying to change the subject. He felt sick already thinking about the fact that he was going to have to fess up to his parents about school, and he didn’t need to stress puke all over Stan’s nice car. 

Which he then spent the next half hour picking through, digging through the glovebox and toying with the radio settings and sorting through Stanley’s cassettes. 

“I do have to say, Mr. The Man, your music selection is much improved from our dear Edward’s. His records sucked, and he wouldn’t even let me look at his cassettes.” 

“Maybe because you said his records sucked.”

“His records did suck, for the most part. He did have some Marvin Gaye, to his credit.”

“So he is learning.” 

“So he is.” 

With about an hour left in the drive, the car fell silent, enthusiasm spent, as the highway dragged on in front of them. Stanley looked glazed over, sun tired and drive tired and socially tired from having seen two old pals unexpectedly in one night after the week spent with Mike, and Richie just felt generally bone tired. 

He’d never actually been relieved to see his white brick prison looking dorm room, but that bed had never been more welcoming. Stanley quietly asked if there was a phone he could use once they dropped their bags, and Richie directed him to the one in the little kitchenette at the end of the hall. He set up a somewhat comfortable bedroll situation next to his bed out of a mountain of extra blankets (and some stray clothes), quiet so as not to wake his roommate. He nearly knocked over his guitar at one point, catching it with a stiffened twang, but nothing in the room stirred. 

He splashed some water on his face and haphazardly brushed his teeth before clambering into the pile of blankets he’d made on the floor, his lamp on for when Stan returned from his call. He’d said he was calling his mother, but both the late (early? Early, fuck) hour and the length of the call told Richie it was anyone but. Richie tried to get comfortable, back protesting quite loudly the fact that he had a perfectly good bed right next to him and was still trying to sleep on the floor. He kicked his legs out, realizing for the first time that he was still in Eddie’s clothes. The thought equally warmed and horrified him. Then again, he’d ended up with Bev’s sweatshirt in pretty much the same way, and that was no big deal. This didn’t have to be a big deal. 

Richie was tucked in by the time Stanley returned, bambi-legged as he picked his way over the messy floor, stopping short of the bed and crouching down to get closer to Richie’s level. 

“Why are you on the floor?” 

“Because I have a guest. That’s you, bud, you’re my guest. Congrats.” 

“ _Get_ in the bed.” 

“ _No—_ ” 

And this went on for a moment, a whisper squabble. It had nearly come to slaps (not blows, Stan wasn’t a puncher, but he did have a mean smack in him), but Richie was eventually forced to clamber back into his own bed while Stan set up on the floor. His joints practically rejoiced at the feeling of a mattress, his _own_ mattress, unshared, allowed to sprawl as he pleased, and he realized that even with all this recent excitement he was truly going to sleep like a baby. 

Stan swore (a tame “ _hell”_ ) as he nearly whacked his head on Richie’s bed frame rolling over, and Richie leaned over to make sure he was alright, close to delirious snickering. Stan shushed him, despite nearly doing the same thing, and Richie swatted at him, one last ounce of belligerence left in him. Brought him back to so many bygone sleepovers. It was near uncanny, with so many usual miles and busy schedules between them, that they were doing it again. Look at Richie’s luck. 

Stan swatted back at him and Richie recoiled for only a moment, ducking back in after clicking off the light. 

“I know that wasn’t Mama Uris on the phone, Stanley. Does someone have a little birdie waiting for him at home?” 

“And I know you didn’t spend _every_ night at Eddie’s on the couch, Richard.”

And that, in a way only Stanley could, shut Richie right the hell up. 

Stan had been the first to know. 

If Richie really thought about it, Stan was the only to know. Officially. Richie worried about a loose end here or there, considering how painfully honest he tended to get when he was drunk nowadays, but trying to keep track of all those would drive him to insanity. 

So Stan was the first to know. 

_“You’re a big fat liar, I can see right through you.”_

_Richie shrugged, having to adjust his glasses a moment later. They were his older ones with the loose hinges; the most recent pair were currently irreparable. Stepped on in a midnight rush to the bathroom a week prior. “I don’t know what to tell you, Stanny boy.”_

_Stan wrinkled his nose at the nickname, giving Richie a look. He’d never remember exactly what record was playing, but he could recall the way it had scratched. The volume was on so low, he wondered how he even picked it up in the moment._

_“Stanny boy? That’s a new one.”_

_“I’m a wordsmith, didn’t you know that already?”_

_“You’re diverting.”_

_Stanley pointed his flashlight in Richie’s face, making him blink and hold up his hands to shield his eyes. The blanket suspended from Richie’s headboard and desk chair fluttered, casting colors on the walls outside their late-night comic book reading fort. It was one of those splendid and rare school night sleepover occasions: the Uris’ were on a long weekend vacation and had left Thursday afternoon to beat traffic._

_“_ Watch _it—“_

_“Fess up.”_

_Richie dropped his comic book in his lap with a soft slap, putting on the most incredulous look he could muster. Not so refined at twelve. Despite his current fascination with all things movie and actor and expression, it wasn’t all too convincing. Especially not to Stanley._

_“Isn’t this girly shit, Stan? Do you want to break into my mom’s makeup and nail polish while we’re at it?”_

_Stan returned to his initial question. “Who the hell do you have a crush on?”_

_Richie, at that moment, decided to flop backward on the bed with enough gusto and drama to upset their meticulous record player situation (which included setting it on the corner of the bed under the blanket fort to muffle the sound, as Richie firmly believed reading Superman was twice as enriching with a little taste of Went’s favorite oldies in the background), which in turn caused several heart pounding seconds of the pair of them scrambling to keep the player from crashing to the ground._

_Stanley glared at him, lit menacingly from below, the cord tight in hand. “Quit dodging, you’re gonna hurt yourself or me.”_

_“You brought it up.”_

_Stanley dropped the cord once Richie settled the record player and flapped his comic like a dad would a newspaper. “_ You _brought it up first earlier,_ I _was trying to_ read _.”_

_Richie thought about it. Stanley was correct. Richie had had a hunch that Stanley was sweet on a girl in their homeroom and was trying to pry it out of him, to no avail. “Then maybe you should answer first.”_

_“I don’t like anyone.”_

_“Clearly, you mean old bastard.”_

_Stan shoved at him and Richie snickered. “Not like that. I do like_ some _people, just not you. And I don’t like anyone like_ that _.”_

_“And I told you, I like Beverly Marsh.”_

_Stanley rolled his eyes, big and dark and dramatic in the light of the flashlight. “You’ve never spoken to Beverly Marsh once in your life, I know that as a fact.”_

_“Can I not admire from a distance?”_

_Stanley shoved at him again, not hard, and Richie shoved back a little this time. “Richie, you can’t like somebody you don’t know.”_

_“Says who?”_

_At this point, Richie could see the little flush of color rising in Stan’s cheeks._

_“Oh?” he started, picking up the flashlight to aim at his friend, “Did dear Mother Uris give her blushing baby boy some romantic advice recently?”_

_“Yes, Richie, if you must know, she told me you can’t have a crush on someone you don’t know personally.”_

_“May I please have a little context?”_

_Richie would eventually learn that this conversation came about over family dinner and a movie at the Uris household, during which Mr. Uris decided to disclose that his dear boy had a crush on Olivia Newton John, to said dear boys clear mortification. Mrs. Uris then clarified that you cannot have a crush on someone you don’t know personally, and encouraged Stanley to pursue more achievable avenues. Richie did not learn this until a while later, with much persistence._

_This time, Stanley diverted._

_“I think it’s Bill.”_

_Richie flapped his comic book back open. “You think Bill has a crush on Beverly Marsh?” He peered over the top of the pages. “Given that he’s never spoken to her either, clearly not.” He glanced back down at Clark Kent, rereading the same panel for a third time._

_“Clearly not,” Stan agreed, making Richie look back to him. “I think_ you _have a crush on Bill.”_

Richie sighed, trying to keep his voice down. “Always outright with it, huh, Stanny boy?” 

_Richie couldn’t remember the tail end of that conversation. He remembered some forced laughter and vehement denial, and remembered not being able to sleep the rest of the weekend._

_He remembered a moment of awkwardness the next time he saw Bill, which happened to be that Saturday, followed by a moment of relief in knowing there was no reason to feel awkward, followed immediately by an overwhelming sense of embarrassment the moment Eddie padded in behind him. He remembered not being able to make eye contact with Eddie or Stan for a clear hour or two into their adventure of the weekend, then choosing to ignore it, then forgetting for a while._

_He remembered laying awake wondering how Stan got so close to the mark yet so far, petrified that someone else might make a similar observation._

_He found out through years of knowing him that, luckily, Stanley Uris was the only twelve year old on the planet observant and introspective enough to meaningfully strike that mark at his age. And Richie, unwittingly, made sure of it._

“You know I don’t like to prance around things.” 

“Yeah, that’s for sure,” Richie muttered. He picked at his shirt. Eddie’s shirt. His chest felt sore, empty and full and tangled and confused all at the same time. “Nothing happened.” 

“Oh, Rich, how I wish I believed you.”

“You tell me who you were on the phone with, and I’ll tell you all about the nothing that happened this weekend.” 

“Then it seems we’ve reached a stalemate.” 

“And with that, goodnight.” 

“Night, Richie.” 

Stan was snoring unabashedly within minutes. Richie, despite his brain rattled with thoughts about all that nothing, followed shortly behind.

“So you’ll be there?” 

At breakfast the next morning (which was really afternoon seeing as they hadn’t fallen asleep until 6 in the morning), in the frankly seedy dining hall downstairs, Stanley had made Christmas come early for Richie. And Stanley didn’t even celebrate Christmas. 

“Of fucking _course_ I’m gonna be there, Stanley, I wouldn’t miss that for the fucking world.” 

December 8th, only a couple weeks away, and Stanley was having a gathering. 

An official meeting of the Losers Club, a date where it seemed almost everyone was free, if not everyone. Mike was coming all the way up. Ben was doing his best to make it from Nebraska. Bill had to be there, the man hardly did anything these days and Stanley was forcing him out of his hovel of an apartment. Beverly had pulled from savings for a plane ticket and her flight was booked. Richie was coming if he had to walk all the way to Albany. And if he hadn’t recovered his car by then, then he might just. He wanted to stamp his feet like a little kid under his chair, bundled with energy, but he settled for jackrabbit tapping one sneaker for a moment. 

“I can’t believe I forgot to tell Eddie when I was just there,” Stanley said, shaking his head. “Do you think he’ll be able to make it?”

“Oh, I’ll make sure of it,” Richie said. “I don’t think his winter break starts until the next week or something, so he won’t have to sneak out of his mom’s house.” 

“You even have his schedule memorized, I see things are getting serious.” 

Richie kicked Stan’s shin under the table and Stan winced. “Don’t be an asshole because I’m right.”

Richie pointed at him sternly. “You’re not right, but I’ll make sure the little bastard is there.” 

“So you’ll call him?” 

“I mean you can still call him—”

“But you want an excuse to call him.”

Richie shook his head at his soggy toast. “I think— I think that I hate you, I think you’re a menace to mankind, Stan. And I think you hate me, you sick bastard.” 

“Aw, Richie, you are going soft.” He reached across the table to pat Richie’s arm. “Thank me later, big guy.” 

As Richie was walking Stan to his car that afterafternoon, tail between legs, he was certainly still ecstatic about finally seeing everyone in one place, but getting cold feet on the idea of inviting Eddie himself. He felt he might give the guy some breathing room. Maybe a little time to miss him, if that wasn’t wishful thinking. 

“Really, Stan, it’s your party, you should invite him. It’s not my place.”

“Wow, so something did happen.” 

“I’m not telling you, Stan, we had a deal.” 

Stan shrugged calmly. “It’s okay. I’ll just wait ‘til you’re drunk and you’ll spill the beans. I love you, but you are kind of predictable.”

It was only going to be a couple weeks, but man, Richie was going to miss this little shit. He missed all the shits, the whole bunch of them, nearly all the time, but Stan really did have his number in a way he needed. “And you’re a genuine dick, but I think I love you too, man.” 

Stanley smiled. They clapped arms around each other, Richie rocking back and forth between his feet for a moment to sway them and hang onto the hug for a moment longer. It was a little tough saying goodbye to two of his favorite people within 24 hours, even with the promise of seeing them soon. 

Richie hadn’t had a lot to look forward to lately, and December 8th was already metaphorically circled in red marker on his metaphorical calendar and punctuated with little drawn on metaphorical stars and smiley faces. He was a little excited. He released Stan and allowed him to get into his car, blowing a kiss. “Good luck with that new girlfriend, Staniel.” He thumped the top of his car. 

Stan pulled a face. “She is not my girlfriend—” 

“Fess up, dude, I can see it in your face.”

“Figure out your own shit first, then come for me.” 

Richie waved him off, and Stan turned the ignition and started to back out, window down, the two of them shouting from ten feet apart like fools. 

“Don’t forget to call Eddie!” 

“I might call him, in case you chicken out. But I might not!” 

_“Stanley!”_

Stanley laughed, the sound ringing like a bell over the parking lot and little patch of grass between it and the dorm building. “Get a grip Tozier, you’re a wreck. I’ll call him, I promise!” 

“Get outta here!” 

“Yeah, love you too, man!” 

And Stan was off, leaving Richie squinting into the sunlight after his car, unhappy to finally be left alone with his thoughts and his problems but happy to know there was an end date. 

December 8th. 

Richie swiped a hand slowly down his face, swearing under his breath. Jesus fucking Christ, he needed to finally call his dad. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have realized several things in editing this long ass chapter:  
> -i spelled christmas wrong both times i wrote it in two different ways. i was raised catholic. god is ashamed.  
> -i make up 1% of the words written in this entire fic. there are so many words that the webster dictionary would have my ass for even attempting  
> -i have changed many a tire in my life and thought writing that scene would be a flex on that but instead it just made me realize that there are WAY too many dick jokes and jerk off jokes to be made about the terminology that goes into changing a fucking tire and i wanted to take every opportunity but for the sake of my pride and the reader i only took a few of those chances but if i so decide another tire has to be changed in this story than all bets are off
> 
> thank you for reading i have no idea how i have the attention span to write this much and cannot imagine the sheer task of reading it all and anyone who has gotten this far is a personal hero to me. more to come soon


	7. MYRA

**THURSDAY**

Eddie would be lying to himself if he said he hadn’t noticed Myra the first time he saw her. 

Of course, keeping with the idea of honesty, it was mostly because she was one of the only other people to be as early as Eddie on the first day of class that semester. It was some GenEd, something Eddie was hoping would breeze by without a hitch and without having to develop a personality for this particular set of people. Myra had been there early, and Eddie had seen her and a friend of hers sitting in the front row, which he noticed, and her friend had glasses, which he noticed, and Myra had laughed in a way which made her snort, which he had noticed. 

He took a seat a row back and off to the side, not wanting to sit too close to them and intrude, and the class had steadily filled in the remaining twelve minutes before 10AM. 

Myra had mostly slipped from his mind for most of the semester. Julie knew her, he saw her at one of her parties. Her hair was curled nicely, she was sipping on a water bottle with a few other vaguely recognizable people in the kitchen. 

Eddie managed to keep from talking for the duration of the class and wasn’t bothered by knowing not one single soul. He kept up with work, he got to class on time. 

And one morning he didn’t. 

It had been, admittedly, the week of Richie’s arrival and subsequent departure. A series of days and nights which had run him a little more ragged than expected. Eddie hadn’t caught up on sleep, and his body apparently decided to do so without his consent. He woke up at exactly 11:52 on Thursday. 

With a test approaching, it wasn’t the kind of class to miss. Unbothered for all of thirty seconds, Eddie shot out of bed the moment he remembered their professor mentioning an in-depth study guide review. On Thursday. From 10 to noon. 

He was dressed and on his way to Julie’s in a flash, the buttons of his coat on the wrong snaps. Didn’t she have a friend in that class? Megan? He was desperate. Julie thought he might be overreacting a tad, but seemed more than willing to write down Myra’s dorm number for him. She was pretty sure she had class until 2, Julie added, helpfully. 

Eddie set out at 2:30. He collected his mother’s latest letter from the wall of tiny apartment mailboxes on his way, shoving it deeply into his coat pocket without bothering to look at it. 

Myra lived in the building across campus, which was usually a freshman dorm. According to Julie, her assigned roommate had dropped out suddenly and they’d given her a single upperclassman room on the first floor. Eddie tried to consider himself jealous of her living situation rather than nervous that he was knocking on this poor random girl’s door. He held the half scrap of looseleaf in both hands as he approached the building, double triple checking the number. He’d be mortified if he knocked on the wrong door.  _ Myra _ , it read, the last name scribbled in such a way that Eddie couldn't make out out, it was a little long,  _ West Hall 129. _

Hers was the second door. Eddie checked his paper ( _ 129 _ ) and the placard beside the door ( _ 129 _ , then again in braille underneath), and the paper ( _ Myra Something-or-other _ ) and the little name tag on the door, made presumably by a tired RA over the summer ( _ MYRA;  _ there were some doodled flowers). That checked out. According to his watch, it was 2:36. Myra of West Hall 129 should be out of class at 2. 

Eddie knocked twice, sharp on the thick wooden door. His heart thudded dully, thinking of a way to explain himself that wasn’t creepy. It really wasn’t creepy at all, he was a friend of a friend who missed class and needed to ask if he could borrow some notes or collect any papers he missed, ready to beg on his hands and knees for notes on the review if need be, his friend had given him her name and room number—

The door was opening and Eddie was hastily shoving the paper along with his dumb hands into the back pockets of his pants. 

Myra appeared, her face a clean slate of curiosity and a hint of confusion, a few strands of her blonde hair falling out of her ponytail to frame her face. She looked him in the eyes and Eddie realized they were about the same height: this and the strands of hair struck him lightly and strangely in the chest. He was barely taller. 

“Can I—”

“Eddie, hi—” Eddie bowled over her question then shut up, only creating space for awkward silence, and was forced to continue. “I’m Eddie, I’m a friend of Julie’s, I just missed class this morning—” 

“Oh yeah,” she said, immediately lighting up. Her expression blossomed like a flower and Eddie stood there like a complete idiot. He felt particularly dumb. “You’re always there early.” 

“You too—” p _ articularly _ dumb— “I mean not today. I mean I wasn’t there today.” 

“I noticed.”

_ Did she?  _

Thank God he didn’t say that out loud. Eddie reached up to rub the back of his neck, dislodging his scrap of paper from his pocket and sending it fluttering to the floor. He snatched for it without knowing why, briefly looking like a fool as he scrambled for it. “Julie um—” he repositioned the paper in his hands— “Julie gave me your room number so I could ask for notes, if that’s okay.” Eddie didn’t know whether he was asking if it was okay that Julie gave him her information or if he could have notes. He shoved the paper in his coat pocket, fidgeting.

Myra seemed just fine with both. “Yeah, of course.” She opened the door a little wider, hand slipping on the handle in a way that calmed Eddie down for some reason. “My notebook’s just— let me just grab it.” 

She disappeared for a moment, and Eddie chose that moment to notice that his coat was buttoned fucky, top button on the second snap. Jesus. He quickly undid the snaps and was in the process of hastily doing them back up when Myra reappeared, a yellow spiral notebook in hand. She looked at him for a moment and Eddie’s face burned, mouth a little dry. Her cheeks might have been a little pink, but it felt warm inside her dorm room. She flipped through the pages, colored highlighter blurring. “You picked a bad day to sleep in,” she said, finding her spot near the back. She turned the notebook to face him and looked up again, and Eddie nearly looked away. 

“I know, I didn’t mean to.” 

Her notes were painstakingly highlighter color coded. Her handwriting was short and round, pleasant to look at. She wrote in blue pen. Eddie took the notebook tentatively. 

“You can just copy down anything you missed and bring that back whenever,” she offered, fingers playing with the small pendant on her necklace. She thumbed the chain. “And if you have any questions you can just come ask, I don’t know if it all makes sense.” 

At first glance, it looked more organized than the Dewey Decimal System. Eddie had a feeling he’d have no trouble, but he gave her a grateful little grin. “Thank you, I shouldn’t take too long, I don’t wanna take these away from you for too long.” 

“The test’s not till Tuesday,” she said. Eddie noticed her cheeks warming slightly. He was immediately endeared to her, trying to swallow it down. “We can always look over them together sometime, if you have the time.”

“Oh.” Eddie’s head spun just a little. Oh. He smiled. “Yeah, I can probably do that.” Nothing set in stone, he also had MacroEcon to study for over the weekend which was going to be a bear, but he could probably do that. “Thank you again, I know it’s kind of late in the semester but if you ever need notes from me—” 

“I’ll ask Julie for your room number?” 

Eddie hesitated for several moments before asking for a pen and fumbling for the scrap of paper in his pocket. He dislodged his mom’s letter in doing so, watching it with wide eyes as it landed somewhat heavily on the carpet. Myra, having just turned to grab something to write with, quickly picked it up for him before he had a moment to move. Eddie felt his chest tighten up, cold despite the somewhat pressing warmth of the hallway, and could only watch as Myra’s eyes flicked over it almost unintentionally. He knew too well the return address sticker his mom stuck on all the outgoing letters from the apartment in Queens, and something about its faded pink floral background felt sinister. Myra handed it over quickly, after what felt like eons.

“Letter from home?”

“N—” Eddie’s first inclination was to lie, terribly and obviously, and he had no idea why. He stopped himself short, letting out a very forced breath. “My mom, yeah.” He took it from her, holding back a wince. It was thick, stuffed with page after page of something Eddie wanted nothing to do with. 

Myra smiled. “That’s sweet, my mom stopped writing forever ago. Still calls though.” 

Eddie couldn’t help feeling like it was sweet in a kind of sugar rush way which only made you sick. He made some awkward affirming sort of noise and shoved the letter back into his coat as she went to get a pen. 

He wrote down his apartment number on the back of his scrap of paper. It was Myra’s now.  _ Eddie Kaspbrak, East Apartment 634C _ . “I’m in the building across from Julie.” 

“Okay.” 

“Thank you, M—Myra.” Oh, _Christ_.

“Any time, Eddie.”

A little shaken, but still mostly relieved, Eddie walked home with his coat buttoned correctly, tidy yellow notebook clutched to his chest, open to the correct page. He had no trouble copying down Myra’s meticulous (and quite frankly, beautiful) notes, finding the contrast between their handwriting kind of funny. Eddie’s was no chicken scratch, but it was a little frantic and cramped. It looked especially so next to Myra’s perfect circles and big loops. 

He’d settled himself in at his desk, shoving the letter into a drawer where it joined several others. The unopened ones he kept until guilt forced his hand and his letter opener; he threw out the ones he read. Sometimes he called in response, he never wrote. He stopped writing back last year, realizing it felt more like essays and stressed him out more than any stupid missed test review ever could. The notebooks laid open side by side on his desk, his and Myra’s, as he worked to scribble in as much as he could before he had to get up to get dinner. 

The phone rang again while he was eating, opting for a quick TV dinner so he could get back to business quickly, and Greg, always quick on the draw, announced again that it was for Eddie. 

This time there was a little more weight in the fact that it very well could be Sonia Kaspbrak phoning, about to ask always more and more accusingly if Eddie had gotten her last letter, but another much-needed surprise came that it was, in fact, Stan Uris. 

Eddie was confused when Stan asked if Richie had called, which he hadn’t, and it only worried him slightly. This died very quickly when the news was delivered that he was going to see him, Richie, and him, Stanley, again very fucking soon, thank you very much, and that not only would it be him and him it would be the rest of them. The rest of them in the same room, in Stan’s apartment, the rest of them all together for the first time since the photo in its place of honor above Eddie’s desk. Eddie got all the details, feeling like he was floating on air against the wall in the kitchen, his TV dinner growing cold on the counter. When he hung up, he nearly forgot to finish dinner before darting back to his room to finish copying over notes. His leg bobbed the whole time, humming along with his Walkman in a way he hadn’t in a while, hardly reading anything he wrote. 

All of them together, and it didn’t matter that his mom had just written him a tome of a letter that he’d inevitably have to read and more inevitably have to respond to, and it didn’t matter that things between him and Richie felt tense at best and he couldn’t even think about the reason behind that without pitching himself into a light but considerable panic, all that mattered was that someone had better have a Polaroid camera ready with a timer and a good flash. 

Eddie was still buzzing the next morning through work and class, in a better mood than he’d been in a long time. He’d been worried he’d ruined things on Sunday night somehow, worried that word would get out to Stan then to Bill then to everyone else and they’d all slowly start to nudge him out of the group, nudge him out and not want to talk to him again. Leave him alone again. But Stan, who had very likely heard about all that, had called him personally to invite him anyway, had called him to say  _ it wouldn’t be the same without you, Eddie, I’ll even get you some money for gas on the way back if you can make it _ , and it meant more than the world to him. 

When he returned the notebook that afternoon, Myra was on her way to the library to study. Much like a grateful golden retriever, he followed her, joining her at a quiet table upstairs, their nearly identical notes (save some of the color range: Eddie had black pen and only one yellow highlighter which was rapidly running out of ink) open between them. Myra’s family was from Rochester. Eddie was from Maine, no you really wouldn’t know the area, near Bangor, yeah, Bangor, see, I told you. 

Eddie did really well on that test. 

MacroEcon got him a high C.

The letter remained unopened in his desk.

The phone remained silent; no word from Richie. 

December 8th was a week and a half away. 

Eddie was walking on turbulent air with a tension he tried valiantly to ignore tying tighter and tighter in his gut.


	8. BE STRAIGHT WITH ME, DUDE, DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT ME (BABY)?

**8 DECEMBER 1996**

**ALBANY, NEW YORK**

**8:47 PM**

Streetfighter, bless the old girl, made it to Albany without a hitch. 

Bev rushed Richie at the door. 

He stumbled back a little, not having expected her whole weight the moment Stan yanked the door open. His arms clicked around her like they were meant to and he lifted her until her toes just brushed the carpet, hearing her laugh in his ear and Stan barking at them behind her, trying to get in to greet him. Richie’s head rushed suddenly with  _ happy _ , brain feeling like it was made of cotton candy. His backpack threatened to counterbalance them and take them both down, but suddenly Bev was back on her feet and Richie was the one being lifted like a ragdoll. 

“Mike Hanlon, you son of a gun!” He thumped him on the back, set down a moment later. 

Beaming in a way that made Richie’s chest nearly burst, Mike sized him up, hands squeezing his biceps. “Jesus, man, are you still getting taller? How old are you?” 

Richie patted the top of his head, which really was only a few inches shorter than his when he stood up straight. “I’ve been cursed to just get bigger and bigger my entire life, it’s a burden I must bear.” 

“Bigger mouth, maybe,” Beverly said. 

“That I can agree with.” Stan offered to take his backpack and headed off toward his bedroom with it. This revealed Eddie hidden behind him, stiff shoulders up to his ears despite his smile. 

“And there he is,” Richie said, arms tensing when his body signaled his brain to extend them and go give the bastard a hug and his brain hesitated. 

_ Get a grip Rich. Au naturale.  _

Before either of them could say no, Richie pulled him in for a quick squeeze around the shoulders, deciding (as he had several times in the car) that this entire night was going to go smoothly and no one was going to have so much of an inkling of an idea that he and Eddie felt a little strange around each other since last seeing each other. 

“Big dipshit,” Eddie said into his shoulder, just a little too fondly to not mean it. “Fashionably late, as per usual, huh?” 

“I may have miscalculated how long it was going to take to find someone willing to chop off what was quickly turning into a mullet in the girls’ bathroom for me before I left, yeah.” He scrubbed a hand through the back of his hair, freshly shorn by Amy, a nice girl who lived below him and did just that only a few hours prior. “But talk about fashion, get a load of this lady. Good golly, Ms. Molly.” Stan had a radio on a shelf of the TV stand, blaring, and Richie immediately reached across Eddie (who stepped quickly out of the way) and took Beverly by the hand and gave her a twirl. She only barely stumbled, never quite a picture of grace. “How much of tonight’s lovely ensemble did you make yourself, my dear?” 

“Styled mostly by Sears,” she admitted, plucking at Richie’s fairly loud over shirt. One he hadn’t worn in a very long time. “Armani for you, I assume?” 

“Dad’s closet, actually.” 

“You want a drink, Rich?” Mike offered, heading to the kitchen. A little island held a very modest collection of bottles. Scattered sodas, orange juice, wine, clearly for Eddie and Stan, beer presumably from Mike, and a tall bottle of Vodka that could only be Bev’s. God, he loved her.

“You betcha, Mikey.” 

The first time Richie had been in Stan’s apartment, he wasn’t quite surprised, but was nothing short of impressed. He’d helped him move in the previous summer, and Stan was beyond proud to have his own place off-campus by junior year. It was a tidy little building with a buzzer downstairs and everything, between downtown Albany and his campus, with one bedroom and a tidy little kitchen. He even had his own washing machine under the island, which really was a little exciting. He could see a couple bags piled by the door of Stan’s bedroom, and realized quickly his headcount was a little low 

_ EddieOneBevTwoMikeThreeStanFourMeFive— _

Eddie settled into an armchair as Mike brought Richie a beer, Bev perching on the coffee table. 

“I love you all and all, but aren’t we a little short? It’s not like me to not be last.” 

“Ben got slowed down by a snow storm over Ohio, he should be here soon.” Stan said. He topped off his glass with a little more wine and came to settle down on the couch. 

“Part of me thought we were gonna get another call from you breaking down on the way, Trashmouth,” Eddie added, both hands around his cup. It looked to be full of water. Mike settled onto a barstool behind him. “How the hell did you get your car back?” 

“Now, you know I greatly value my membership with Triple E, Eds, but I unfortunately had to call a local tow company in Bridgeport and bug my roommate in driving me out to pick her up.” Richie’s voice trailed off at the end, noticing for a moment that they had naturally settled into a tight little circle in the living room, the radio crooning softly over the murmur of them. There was a certain lightning static when any of them got close, stronger and stronger the more of them were there, a Redwood alone in a field during a thunderstorm, lightning rod. It even felt like Ben was getting close. Mike said something to Stan, who laughed and punched his arm, and Bev made a grab for Eddie’s shoelaces as if to untie them, making him grin and yank his foot up onto the chair like a scandalized kid. 

But the circuit was still open. 

The room seemed to quiet the second before Richie spoke up, dread creeping into the ends of his fingers. “And uh, what’s the story on Big Bill?” 

Stan blinked at him. Eddie looked sadly down at his shoe, still tied. 

Richie’s stomach sank. “Oh, come on, he didn’t pussy out, did he?” 

“He couldn’t make it,” Mike said, low voice comforting as it could be. 

“He’s alright, he’s just—”

“Not coming,” Stan finished for Eddie when he hesitated. 

A lump formed in Richie’s throat. He cracked open his beer, the sound seeming too loud, and tried to drink it down. He’d just seen Bill a few weeks prior, he was doing okay. But part of Richie understood a little sadly why he wasn’t there. 

“Welp.” He spun the beer in his hand, glancing at the label. He knew nothing about beer. Wheat water. He raised his can and ducked down to turn up the radio a little. “Love the ones you’re with, am I right? Stanley Uris, throw a little vodka in that wine, live a little buddy, you have a party to run.” 

Beverly did convince Stan to try a (very weak, she promised) mixed drink, knowing he wasn’t big on heavy drinking but wanting to show him that there was more to life than red wine and Mike’s beer. 

“Eddie I’m trying to get in trouble,” she told Richie quietly after pouring him a slightly heavy handed screwdriver. “He told me his tolerance has gone up. And I’ve heard he can be quite the dancer, I’d like to see it.” 

Richie slapped his hand on the island. “Then put it to the test, madame, certainly.” 

Clearly not having heard, Eddie scruffed Richie’s hair as he thanked Bev for his drink and traipsed back over to the couch where he’d been sitting with Stanley, cackling on and off. They were all holding off really letting loose for when Ben arrived, but Richie had already been there about an hour and was feeling properly buzzed. Thank Beverly and her screwdrivers. Mike tapped Beverly’s shoulder and pulled her gently into conversation.

Richie felt like he was sliding off the little barstool, heavy head propped in a hand as he gazed at Beverly as she teased Mike next to her. They’d both had a shot or two, but Richie had a slight head start with that first beer he downed pretty easily. Didn’t usually drink beer. His eyes closed for a moment, opening when a small hand lifted his shaggy hair off his forehead. 

He opened sleepy eyes to find Beverly peering at him, bemused. “You doin okay, champ?” 

“Applesaucselootley, ma’am.” He let out a long, deep breath and lifted his head, elbow steadying him. “How’ve you been, Bev? How’ve you  _ really _ been?” 

She tried to stack his mess of hair on his head in a way that wouldn’t fall again into his eyes, to no avail. “I’ve actually been doing really, really great.” 

“How’s fashion school?” 

“About as good as fashion school can be right now.” 

Richie noticed Stanley gazing at the two of them. He gave Richie a sweet wave and a grin, his contemplative face looking somehow no different than it had when they were kids. 

He waved back. “Hiya, Mr. The Man.” God, he adored his fucking friends. 

“Richie,” Stan said, “you should ask Beverly to show you some of the sketches she brought.” 

_ What _ an excellent idea. Richie perked up immediately, nearly knocking his glasses askew. Beverly laughed. “You heard the man, Ms. Marsh. Away, immediately.” He took her by the hand and slid off his seat, adjusting his glasses. 

Beverly hopped down with him, sticking the landing and tossing her arms up like a gymnast.

He loved his friends. 

“Cmon, spaz.” 

Beverly retrieved her purse from Stan’s room and took a seat on the mattress, fingering through it as Richie sat down. He didn’t really sit, so much as let his weight collapse into it, ending flat on his back with his sneakers on the floor. He was far from drunk, feeling genuinely just high on life. Sitting in Stanley Uris’ room with Beverly Marsh while Mike Hanlon and Stanley Uris and Eddie Kaspbrak, of all people, were out laughing at each other in the living room. Ben Hanscom was on the way. He’d see Bill sometime soon, he was sure. They had plans soon. All in the year of our lord 1996. God, lucky man was he. 

He watched Beverly flick through a tidy little black sketchbook. “Lemme see.” 

“Sit up first.”

Richie grumbled about it, but eventually sat up, faced with cream colored pages filled with loving little sketches of sleek gowns and smart tops and other articles of clothing he simply did not have the vocabulary at the moment to describe. Beverly herself was in a blouse and jeans, looking like a dream from a catalogue and just as ready to kick around in the mud with the boys as she had been as a kid. Richie looked down mildly disdainfully at his dull jeans and sneakers. He was glad he’d worn a moderately exciting shirt this time. Didn’t wear those as much these days.

“A couple of these are actually in construction for this show that’s coming up at my school, I got three designs in, it’s like a midterm thing for next semester.” She glanced at Richie, tipping her head in mock modesty. “Someone let slip that that’s something of a record for a junior.” 

Richie’s head fell heavily onto Bev’s shoulder. It was a good few inches down, but she hardly flinched. “You’re fucking amazing.” 

“I don’t need you to tell me that, but it’s much appreciated.” Beverly fondly patted his cheek and he grinned stupidly. He winced, groaning silently at himself when he felt his stomach turn over. He swallowed. 

“I’m gonna come to that show if it kills me, that’s a promise.” 

“You all are, I’m making you. I have invites in my purse as we speak.”

Richie felt that little endorphin head rush hit him again.  _ You all are _ . Reunited again, a second chance for Bill to be there, and this was for Beverly, of course they would all turn over the Earth to make it. “Good. Put the fear of God into these boys and make sure they show up, huh?” He was quiet for a moment, opening lazy eyes to gaze down as she flipped through a couple pages. Richie was a little in awe, unsure how to properly say that. His stomach felt hot, but he was having too nice a time to bother to get up yet. “Is this a black tie sort of occasion? Chicago fashion week? Are you gonna put us in monkey suits?” 

“You just do your best, okay?” 

He gave her a little shove with a little snort as he started to get up. “I’m gonna go throw up, but as soon as I get back I’m gonna get you back for that, then I wanna see more fashion shit.” 

“You’re not already drunk,” she said, in disbelief. 

Richie waved at her as he ducked into the bathroom. “No, beer just doesn’t sit well with me.” 

“Why did you accept a beer?” 

“Mikey Hanlon offers you a beer and you say  _ no _ ? Are you a monster? You’ve seen his smile. He’s a gem.” 

“Do you want me to hold your hair?” she said, laughing. He could tell that, despite definitely laughing at him, it wasn’t mean. 

“I planned for this,” Richie said, finding his last scrap of pre-puke energy to whip up some dumb voice for her. “Why do you think I cut my hair?” He winked as he dipped into the bathroom. He quickly turned the shower on, shut the door, and got on his knees while Beverly laughed behind him. 

By the time Richie was finished taking the beer he’d put in him right back out, the losers were hollering in the living room. Beverly had vacated the bedroom, leaving him precious seconds of pride to collect himself before braving the full group again. 

Ben Hanscom, in the flesh, was in the middle of a five person dogpile at the door. 

Richie quickly made it six.

“ _ Haystack _ , woudja ever lookit that, made it all the way ‘cross the great wide mid-east to us, ya hear, he did, lookit him—” Richie wedged through to cup Ben’s jaw, grinning at his wince as he shook his face around a little. “And lookit him, jeezalady—” He thumped his sturdy chest, looking him up and down exaggeratedly. 

Ben looked politely bashful about it, his face going ruddy as immediately as it always had when he was a teenager. “Good to see you too, Richie.” 

“When are you gonna come visit me in Missuruh, huh? You look like you could tip a cow just looking at it.” 

“I hate what the Midwest has done to you,” Stan said. 

“Give him some room, Richie,” Beverly said, pointing out that Richie was still crowding Ben into the door which they had all been guilty of a moment ago. It seemed Richie barreling out of the bathroom fresh from throwing up was enough to clear the group hug for the time being. To his credit, he had stolen some mouthwash and rinsed. He stepped back and swept an arm to welcome Ben over the threshold, elbowing Stanley. 

“You can take the boy out of the Northeast—”

“But good luck taking the shit sense of humor out of the boy,” Eddie added, helpfully. 

Richie gave Eddie a little look. Jesus, was it so reassuring to have him ripping on him. Having puked, with Ben here, and with Eddie taking shots at him, the night got immediately so much fucking better. Feeling normal for the first time all night, Richie yanked Eddie in and threw an arm around his shoulders. “Beverly, get this man another drink, we still haven’t managed to yank that mile long stick out of his ass, poor dear must be getting sore.” 

Richie was lucky enough not to throw up the rest of the night. He’d been worried on the drive there, a little over concerned that the moment he saw all of them together again his stomach would riot due to excitement or nerves or a lovely little cocktail of both. But as it was, he was seemingly allowed to enjoy Bev’s little cocktails without the repercussions. Stan asked her at one point if she’d been bartending lately, to which she replied fondly, ruffling his hair, “It doesn’t take a practiced bartender to get you drunk, Stanley.” 

This was true. Stanley was hardly even a social drinker, but had told Richie that he’d let loose a little once everyone arrived safely. And sad as it was that Bill wasn’t there (a fact that was nagging at the back of every mind in the apartment, seemingly even the goldfish on Stan’s nightstand), once Ben had arrived, all that were coming were accounted for. Ever the gracious host, Stanley had taken to turning up the radio and slinging an arm around Mike, singing as loud as two screwdrivers would allow him. And for someone who allowed himself a glass of white wine on an occasional Sunday night like an old woman with a family history of aggressive alcoholism, this was quite loud. 

“I didn’t think he was much of a dancer,” Ben had observed, watching Stan swing Mike’s arms around with wild abandon. Mike, who did have fairly good rhythm, was graciously steadying him and trying desperately to keep him on beat, to little avail. It looked like some awful children’s movie about a drunk praying mantis and a kindly grizzly bear trying to make sure the mantis didn’t kill himself. 

Richie snorted over the rim of his glass, watching from the couch with an arm around Beverly. He’d been tugging a lock of her hair at intervals, which had gotten longer since he’d seen her

_ “Did you grow this all yourself? Good God, the talent in this woman.”  _

, a game which became more and more entertaining the further she sank into her own drink. Ben had graciously brought a few more bottles as options, which was a true godsend. 

“Why don’t you get in there, Haystack? Show ‘em how it’s done?” 

Eddie glanced over from his perch on the armchair beside them, and Ben shifted on his stool. “Why don’t you get up there first, Richie? Weren’t you gonna be the big rockstar?” 

“C’mon, Ben,” Beverly pleaded, reaching over Richie to swipe at his knee. “You’ve got the right stuff, go show off.”

“That joke stopped being funny years ago,” Ben said kindly, cheeks reddening barely. 

Richie was really captivated by how much he’d stayed the same despite how much he’d changed: physically, he was the most different from when they were kids, but it was all still Ben Hanscom under the new diamond cutting jaw and frankly impressive scruff. Richie rubbed his own chin. Maybe he shouldn’t have shaved. 

Beverly playfully smacked Ben’s leg again as the song changed on the radio, and Ben finally got up, cheered on by Richie and Bev. He joined Mike, who looked gracious for a break from being swung around less than gracefully by Stanley, and Beverly turned to Eddie.

“How are you holding up, bud?” 

Eddie, eyes a little droopy, hummed questioningly before raising his cup and nodding. “Just finished.” 

“You want another one, there, Mr. Heavyweight?” 

Richie grinned as Eddie looked down disdainfully into his cup. “He’s not dancing yet, Bev, I do say the poor chap looks like he needs a wee top-off.”

“No,” Eddie protested. “I’m not going to dance, I’m feeling good.” 

“Is that a no on just dancing or a no on the drink?” Bev asked, shooting Richie a sinister little side glance. He did love it when she was only a little evil. There was no harm in enabling Eddie just a little. Richie desperately wanted to see him and Stan belting out to Queen and hanging on each other, it would really just make his night. 

“Dancing,” Eddie said, offering Bev his cup as if taking up a challenge. And he was, according to Beverly, he’d sworn he could out-drink her if he really tried. 

Last time Richie asked for the score, Eddie was at least two shots behind. His prospects were not great. Beverly stood, taking Richie’s cup with her as well, and headed to the island, still fairly steady. Eddie looked slightly lopsided in his chair, knees tucked up. Richie noticed he might have been staring when Mike flopped down next to him with a sigh, putting a heavy arm around him. 

Richie did the same, locking them in next to each other. “How’s Florida’s finest historian?” 

Mike smiled. “I dunno, could you introduce me sometime if you get the chance?”

“Humble.” He nudged Mike’s side. “Stanley told me someone was about to make Dean’s list again, huh? Big college man.” 

“Oh, was he raving about me to everyone again? I’m flattered.” 

“When’s the wedding?” 

“May,” Mike said, shaking his head with a glowing smile. “I see Stan as more of a summer bride.” 

“Oh, that’ll be just beautiful.” 

Mike picked up his beer can from where he’d set it on the coffee before getting up to dance, swishing it a little. “Eddie told me earlier you saw Bill recently, how’d that go?” 

Richie had a split second to worry 

_ why the fuck are you worried it’s no secret _

whether Eddie had mentioned Richie’s stay at his place as well, but the oddness of the question struck him harder. “How did it go? It went fine, Mike, he’s— Bill.” 

Richie glanced over his shoulder when Beverly laughed, bright like a bell. 

“Ben, how many beers have you had?” She asked, watching Ben recover from nearly upsetting Stan’s TV. 

He laughed quietly under his breath, a little embarrassed, as he righted it. “It’s rude to uh- rude to ask about— uh.” 

“He’s trying to make a joke regarding the fact that it’s not polite to ask a lady her age nor to ask a proud rural Nebraskan man how rip-roaring drunk he is after half a case of beer, but he didn’t land it,” Richie called to her helpfully. 

“Thank you, Richie, I think I got it.” 

“I would have landed it.”

“No he wouldn’t have.” 

Bev laughed again. “And thank you, Eddie.” She handed him his cup and passed Richie’s back to him, lingering by Eddie’s chair to watch Ben and Stan galavant about the living room. 

Richie stuck his tongue out at Eddie, who sneered like the little brat he was, which, in turn, only made Richie’s chest seem to open up with joy. Man, he couldn’t have asked for a better night. 

“And how is Bill?” Miked asked again.

Okay, maybe one thing would have made it a little better. Richie sighed, fingering the hem of his shirt, pressing his lips together for a moment. “He’s still writing like a fucking— coke feind, I guess. He keeps trying to get me to read over some of his shit, but dude, it’s just—” 

“Heavy?” 

“ _ Terrifying _ .” 

Mike bore through him with his worried deep brown eyes, unsettling him a little bit. “So he’s still on the horror route?” 

“Yeah, seems like it. Apparently he’s been working day and night on this novel after a bad fight with one of his professors, trying to prove him wrong and get the damn thing published. It’s dark shit, dude, he showed a little bit of it to me and it gave me real heebie-jeebies. I used to like scary movies and everything as a kid, but it’s a little twisted up.” Richie picked at his thumbnail. “I was trying not to worry too much about him, but the fact that he didn’t show—”

“Me too,” Mike admitted, keeping his voice down. He patted Richie’s shoulder with a thick palm, comforting him more than Richie cared to admit. “Is he still always stoned out of his mind?” 

“From what I can tell, yeah. I mean I’ll still go for a joint here and there, but he’s like a proper stoner.”

“Anything else I should know about?” 

Richie thought back briefly to laying on Bill’s dirty apartment floor a few weeks back, tripping absolute balls, hyper focused on the ceiling fan and unable to tell whether it was the fan spinning or him. Bill had also made some incredible guacamole which really looked like it was trying to seep out of the bowl itself, which was off putting, but still delicious. “He’s not on heroin or anything, Mike, come on.”

“Richie.” 

“We did some acid,” he admitted, looking up at Mike in a way he’d looked at many an angry elementary school principal.

Mike laughed, big and deep, head tipping back. “Damn, Richie, you had me worried for a second you were both slipping into alcoholism.”

“So you’re fine with acid? You wanna do acid sometime there, Mikey?”

“God no, and you two should both be careful with that crap, but that doesn’t worry me all as much. I think Bill’s just taking his own route to figure himself out, I just wanna make sure he’s not being entirely self destructive about it. He’s got a lot to unpack.”

Richie took a sip. “Don’t we all.” He sighed. “I’m going on a little day trip with him soon, I’ll keep an eye on him. I promise.” 

“Do you think he was a little nervous to see everyone again? It’s been a while.”

“Hell, Mikey, I was getting nervous on the drive here. We used to think we’d never grow up and would never quit being best buddies all our lives, and here we are all together for the first time since—” 

“1989,” Eddie chimed in, wincing after a sip. Richie assumed that Beverly made that drink a double so he could catch up. Poor thing. “I gota picture, at home, I brought a camera ‘n everything but I don’t wanna take another one ‘til Bill’s here.” He took another drink.

Man. “Next time, Eds.” He dearly wanted to reach over and pat his leg, but stopped himself lest he surprise him and make him spill his drink. Funny as that would be. Eddie was no angry drunk, but sometimes a little boisterous.

“I was a little nervous myself,” Mike said, bobbing his leg as he topped off his beer. “It’s been really strange being so far away from all of you. I’m a little jealous of you guys still up here.” 

Richie had been lucky that Boston was somewhat equidistant between Albany, Portland, and New York. His heart sank thinking about how far away his parents house was from all this, from all them, tucked away in Willard. Christ. He felt a little sick. Maybe he would throw up if he thought on that too much. Hadn’t broken the moving home news to everyone and didn’t really want to. “Yeah, but Stan said you love Florida.” 

“Oh, I absolutely do, I live within walking distance of both a library and a beach, it’s a dream, but that doesn’t mean I miss you guys any less.” Mike squeezed him around the shoulders and Richie just barely tipped his head against his temple.

“Oh, fuck me,” Eddie said, suddenly looking frantic. Richie’s attention snapped over to him, where he was trying to set his drink down and clamber out of his chair with any semblance of balance. Ben, who had taken a short break from dancing to settle up a little closer to Bev near the island, reached around her to steady him if he needed it. 

Richie pipped up. “Oh shit, watch out lady and gents, I think Eddie just realized there’s a sale on Pepto-Bismol at the Hannaford, everyone out of the way.” 

“No the  _ song _ , you— dick for brains.” Eddie was already singing a little under his breath as he got quite unsteadily to his feet. 

“Stanley, I owe you a tenner,” Mike said, grinning as Eddie made his way to Stan near the radio in the middle of the living room. 

Stanley cackled, taking Eddie by one arm as the song picked up. It was definitely familiar, but Richie’s vodka-slow brain was taking a moment to process. Nana? Nina? 

Beverly leaned back into Ben as she laughed, Eddie singing his little heart out with clear wild abandon and merely swaying as Stan continued with some tireless energy to dance around him. “Eddie, how the hell do you know this?” 

“It’s— Richie taught me, remember?”

And suddenly Richie did remember, he remembered pulling out his notebook at lunch in middle school and going over lyrics Eddie had begged him to help figure out, phonetic and mangled German scrawled all over the page.  _ 99 Luftballons _ . _Nena_ , that was it. Eddie heard it on the radio and couldn’t get it out of his head, he’d insisted he learn the words.“How the  _ hell _ do you remember all this, dude?” 

“Isn’t this German?” Stan said, incredulous as Eddie took his hands. “Richie, do you speak German?” 

“No,” he laughed, kicking his feet up on the table to watch. His heart was racing, whole body feeling light and warm and solid as he sank into Mike’s side. “I just— I listened to it enough to learn it, my dad had this record.” 

Eddie had begged him. And Richie had spent tireless hours, probably annoying the fuck out of his parents and scratching that record to shit playing it over and over and over again, but fuck had it been worth it, and fuck was it worth it now, watching Eddie make an absolute ecstatic fool of himself now hopping around with Stan. He was all red in the ears, hair a little everywhere, little blue button down coming untucked in the back. He had a little ducktail. His socks matched. Richie felt his heart in his throat. 

Whatever Eddie was singing was close, but any proud German speaker might faint of sheer embarrassment if they heard him. “ _ Heilten sich fur _ — Richie, c’mon.” 

Richie’s stomach flipped a little. “No, man, you’ve got it, this doesn’t need to be a duet.” 

“Richie,” came Bev’s voice, happy if pleading. “Richie please, you did this to him.” 

“ _ You _ did this to him, you made his drinks.”

“You taught me the fucking words, moron, get up here!”

It was Ben and Mike who wrestled Richie to his feet and got him over the coffee table, joining him and Eddie when Stanley tapped out to crash back into his armchair. Mike lifted Richie’s suddenly reluctant arms up and down like a puppet until he burst out laughing, flailing himself about on his own accord, soon screaming and singing in Eddie’s pink face. Beverly and Stanley were cracking up behind all them, Mike and Ben like big brick walls around them, creating a safe little haven in the middle of Stan’s apartment. Richie tipped his head back and yelled the lyrics. It felt like muscle memory. And after a moment, he felt two small firm hands grasp his, Eddie clinging to his wrists like he needed him to stand. Richie thought he might, until he realized he was just dancing the best a nerdy little drunk white boy could and needed just a little stabilization, and Richie dropped the caterwauling to laugh. His brain felt flooded with serotonin, a heavy dose which came with just being around them, his real friends, which came with hearing everyone laugh, with hearing Stan scream the part of the refrain he knew from the chair, from hearing Mike stumble only to be caught by Bev, from feeling Ben come up behind him and dance his ass off. 

Richie was sandwiched between the two of them, between Ben and Eddie, blushing like mad and not caring for a second. Ben slung his big arms around Richie’s narrow shoulders and nearly pulled him back as the song started to wind down, and without thinking, Richie grabbed for Eddie, catching his waist. Eddie trip-stepped a little forward into him and righted himself quickly, now red down his neck into the collar of his button down, and Richie could only stand there and laugh, out of breath and floating high. 

_ Let go,  _ his rational side insisted,  _ don’t hold onto him like that, don’t freak him out.  _

But Eddie was far from freaking out. He cheered when the next song came on, and Richie felt Ben release him to hop once, just as thrilled.

“Beverly, come on, come get in here,” Ben pleaded.

Stan whined from the chair, too exhausted to join them for a moment but wanting to, scrabbling for his cup of water abandoned on the table to try and get a second wind. Bass pumped through the apartment. Richie could feel it in the pit of his gut, tossing up all his nerves and excitement and the simple little joys of this. The moment felt nearly perfect, buzzing and alive and tangible for once. 

Richie felt like he was actually in the room, and he realized after a moment that for some reason lately he’d felt like he wasn’t. Like he wasn’t there.

And here he was.

And Ben was bellowing in his ear, 

“Don’t you want me  _ baby— _ ”

And pointing over him toward Bev, who was grooving toward them, energized after a quick shot 

_ Don’t you want me, oh— _

And Mike was getting Stan back on his feet, supporting him easily, and bringing him into the now crowded makeshift dance floor

_ I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar— _

And Ben was out from behind Richie and heading for Bev, who was beaming at him like a lighthouse at a ship finally coming home

_ The five years we have had have been such good times—  _

And Eddie’s hands were balling in Richie’s bland undershirt 

_ I still love you— _

And his stomach in his toes and his heart was in his brain

_ Don’t you want me— _

And Eddie’s eyes were closed and his face was close, eyelashes thick and dark

_ Don’t you want me— _

And he could feel Eddie’s heart against his chest he was so close

_ Don’t you want me— _

And their foreheads were touching, singing practically into each other’s mouths

_ Want me want me want me— _

And Stanley was down. 

The tension between them snapped like a wire, loose metal ends clawing across Richie’s face and making him snap his head upright to look over the commotion. His heart thrummed like a scared rabbit. Eddie jumped a mile at the thud, tense until Mike and Stanley started cracking up laughing as Mike made sure he was alright and tried to scoop him off the floor. Richie’s hands flew from their place on Eddie’s hips, held out stiffly in front of him as he watched. Beverly stumbled into Ben’s chest only briefly before reaching down to help Mike tug Stan back to his feet, Stan loudly insisting he was alright. Ben went to grab him a little more water, panting and sweating from the dancing and singing and screaming and beer. 

Richie let out a quick little breath, trying to calm himself, reassuring himself he’d done nothing wrong, when he noticed Eddie’s hand still fisted in his shirt. He glanced down to find he’d paled, big stupid doe eyes wide. “Eds?” 

“I’m—”

Richie recognized that look immediately. “Oh, fuck, he’s gonna puke.” 

Eddie sincerely thought he was going to die. 

One moment he’d been dancing, happy and worried about nothing, blissful nothing for once, laughing at big stupid Richie who couldn’t keep tempo for shit but whose singing voice wasn’t that unpleasant when he was trying, and the next moment his stomach was crawling up his throat. 

His ankles twinged when he stumbled, suddenly under Ben’s arm, breath coming in gulps. He gripped the counter and heard his name, but the room was starting to spin.  _ Bathroom _ came an urgent thought.  _ Cmon, bathroom, now, shit for brains.  _

Bathroom was this way. 

An arm caught his wrist and steadied him as he banked around the corner of the room, leading him down to the cool checkered blue tile of the bathroom floor. That was cute, good design. He was directed to the open maw of the toilet, which he immediately resisted, feeling the hand on his wrist tighten and another appear on his back, a second figure. 

“Nonono _ no _ –“ he protested, tipping his head back as if it would help. 

Ben’s familiar voice swam into the murk of his thoughts. “You got it Eddie, no problem.” He was gentle, guiding his arm into a more comfortable position on the seat. 

But he didn’t wanna be touching the seat he didn’t wanna be facing a goddamn toilet he- 

His brain blew off the dust on some old panic, some old paranoia, pitching him headfirst into the first little whitecaps of unwarranted hysteria. His body wracked with a heave and he felt the budding pinpricks of panic stick in the back of his skull and bleed down his neck, cold. He shook his head and his already runny vision swam. He’d been drinking too fast and moving around too much, and here was the consequence. Encouraging words from both sides of him, but there was no reassurance there. 

“Jesus, Richie, we’re losing him.” 

“Give him a little space.” 

Ben and Richie’s gazes met over Eddie’s hunched back, concern in the usual calm of Ben’s eyes. 

Richie matched his stare, reassuring.“I got him, I just don’t wanna overwhelm him.” 

“I can–“ Ben glanced down at his poor friend, trying not to see him as a scared little kid gasping on a riverbank. Richie nodded at him, very sure about this, keeping his palm firmly between Eddie’s shoulder blades. 

Beverly called from the kitchen and Ben started. 

“Is he okay?” 

“Yeah, he–“

Eddie made a poignant sound to ensure all passerby knew he was, in fact, far from okay. The sound rose like the cry of a wounded animal from the bowl of the toilet. 

“He’s fine!” Richie called back, rubbing his hand up his back a little. “He just needs to barf, hell be fine in a second.” 

“ _ Mgonna choke–“  _ Eddie cried, breath coming shallow. These were the end times. 

“You’re not gonna choke dude, you’re just gonna vom, it’s okay.” 

“Are you sure you’ve got him?” 

“Yes, Ben, he’s gonna be fine, he’s just freaked out.” Richie was unfortunately too well versed in these things. Both in blowing chunks and in Eddie freaking out. “I got him.” 

Ben reluctantly let go of Eddie’s arm and started to get up, looking a little pale himself. “Just holler if you need help.” 

“I will, he’s okay.” Freaked out. “It’s Eddie, there’s bound to be a little drama here. Can you grab the door?” 

Eddie whined to protest that little side comment. 

Ben nodded and stood, giving Eddie one last remorseful look before retreating, the door creaking shut behind him. Richie could picture him fretting outside the door. 

Eddie moaned again and Richie got in a more comfortable position, shifting to the other side of him so he could lean partially against the tub. The music had muffled slightly. Richie reached up to turn on the sink for a little white noise to drown this out. “I’m the pro at this, Eds, you’re in good hands, you got it?” 

No response, some rapid breathing. Eddie shifted on his knees. 

“I’m gonna coach you th—“ Eddie heaved and Richie winced— “through this, alright?” 

“ _ Richie– _ “ his voice was small, magnified by the acoustics in the toilet bowl. “Richie, I—“ he seemed to have a moment of clarity before he retched, whole body creeping forward and convulsing. 

Richie braced for the spatter, but there was nothing. He opened an eye, not realizing he’d closed it. “You can do better than that, cmon. Show me what you’ve got.” He thumped him lightly between the shoulder blades. Bad time to notice, but his hand fit there like it was made to. Ooh, lord.

“ _ Don’t _ — _ “ _

Eddie threw up. 

Richie had seconds before to throw a leg over Eddie’s calves for a better hair holding position and to reach down to smooth the hair away from his face from behind, chest to his back, and he was away. He let out a breath after that first deluge, making sure his palms were flat on Eddie’s temples. “ _ Atta _ boy. I think you’ve got more in you, that wasn’t very impressive. Let ‘em have it, big guy.” 

Eddie was radiating heat, rib cage shaking. “Godsstop you’re such a ah—“ a gag— “ _ AGHshole _ — _ “  _ and another round spilled into the bowl with a sickening splash. 

Richie held his breath. “Yeah, you’re doing great. Lay into me.”

Eddie attempted another bitter insult and was silenced by another round of dry heaves, a sound scraping his throat. He cried out between them, panic scrabbling at him again. 

Richie repositioned at his side, keeping his hair back from his forehead with one hand and placing the other lower against his spine. 

“My n- issit in my nose it’s in– it’s—“ 

Sitting up, Richie was already peeling his own button down off his arms. “No no, of course not. There’s nothing in your nose.” Without even thinking, he slipped out of his sleeves and held the shirt up toward Eddie’s face, a hand against the back of his damp hair. “Blow.” 

Eddie, confused just enough to oblige, did so, and squawked, uncomfortable. “ _ IT’S-“  _

“One more,” Richie urged, and Eddie, cringing, gave it one more go. Richie pulled the shirt away to give him a second to breathe, just then thinking about how goddamn disgusting that was. He looked disdainfully at the blot in his shirt before tossing it into the tub behind him, still close in case they needed it again. “See? No big deal.” 

Eddie’s breathing echoed around the bowl, labored. It might have been funny had Richie not seem him practically turn blue from sheer worry closing up his throat enough times. Asthma or not, the whole not being able to breath deal was as real as he was. Richie stroked his thumb over a knob of Eddie’s spine until his breathing started to slow and he spat a couple times, shuddering. A light whine. Eddie pulled his head out of the bowl and crossed his forearms along the back of the toilet seat, resting his head on them. 

Richie let out a slow breath, not moving his hand from the small of his back. “Jesus, Kaspbrak, the drama of it all.” He shook his head lightly. “You’re the one who should have given theater a go.” 

Eddie rocked his forehead back and forth on his wrists, a hollow grunt echoing in the bowl. Richie sighed, wedging himself between the toilet and the tub. 

After a long silent moment punctuated only by a few spits and light  _ plunks,  _ he finally settled down, deflating. 

The worst was over, thankfully. 

“Not so bad,” Richie said, practically whispering. The faucet was providing some wonderful white noise, making the room feel private despite the two of them being no more than ten feet from their friends outside. The music was still playing, they seemed to have calmed down from the excitement of all that. Eddie was okay. Richie tipped his head back against the wall, tilting his face up to properly feel the cool air in the tiny bathroom. His eyes closed for just a moment, popping open when Eddie shifted. 

He heaved his head like it weighed a hundred pounds, setting his cheek up on one of his forearms. He gazed up at Richie like he was some kind of hero, eyes bright as he peered at him. They were dark and big, perhaps a little shimmery, and he squinted a little when he sighed. Richie caught himself smiling, reaching out to push the sweaty dark hair off Eddie’s forehead, pulse jumping just remembering how close they’d been minutes before while dancing. Like some dumb middle schooler after homecoming. The punch must have been spiked. Eddie sighed again, grateful to be cooled off a little, and blinked slowly as if about to doze off. Richie’s heartstrings vibrated like slapped bass strings. 

His voice was so low and hushed it didn’t even sound like his. “Doin’ okay, buckaroo?” 

Eddie hummed in acknowledgement before properly responding. “Yeah.” 

Richie’s grin spread. “You hardly remember what just happened, huh?” 

Eddie shook his head gingerly, eyes drifting closed. He rocked a little. Richie combed his hair back again just to hear him sigh like that. He didn’t need to ask if he felt better. He could see it on his face, in the easy set of his shoulders. Richie Tozier wondered why he felt most accomplished when he managed to calm Eddie down or set him off in fits of laughter. He knew well enough, but sometimes it was fun to play a little dumb. What did he have if he couldn’t play games with himself and his own emotions? He allowed himself a moment to watch Eddie like this, mellowing out with Richie’s hand just combing through his damp hair to soothe him, dark tufts of it between his pale fingers. It felt alright in Stan’s little bathroom. His thumb just brushed Eddie’s ear, hot, as he finally pulled his hand away, Eddie’s now shaggy hair falling forward again over his brow. Madly unfair how this little bastard could still manage to look like some little angel after puking harder than Richie had ever seen him. 

“Lemme get you some water,” Richie muttered. He heaved himself for his feet, gingerly retrieving a glass from the sink and filling it up. 

He dare not look at his own face in the mirror. He could feel the grin and the pink in his cheeks, and he wasn’t ready to confront that visually. The black of his pupils swallowing his irises, too telling. He wanted to ride it out like it wasn’t real for as long as possible. He must be some kind of freak to be cheesing like this after listening to Eddie yarf like his life depended on it. He took a little sip himself before settling down again next to Eddie, placing a hand high on his arm to signal it was time to start lifting that up. 

Eddie dragged his eyes open again, locking onto Richie with a softness gauzing a burning intensity. His voice sounded a little rough, a little low for him. From his chest. “Y’always lookitme like that, Rich.” 

Richie’s stomach tensed suddenly, all his organs cinching, hand tight on the glass and tight on Eddie’s arm. “What?” 

Eddie lifted a hand clumsily and dropped it heavily on Richie’s arm, skin burning, dragging down after a second to his leg. It felt persistent and heavy, resting limply on top of Richie’s thigh. “Take good care a me.” He sounded just a little stupid, delirious. 

“Yeah, I will,” he said, keeping his voice low, praying it didn’t crack, limiting that promise to tonight and not allowing his subconscious to extend it. 

_ Take care of your drunk buddy, Richie, it’s what friends do.  _

Eddie blinked, closed his eyes, shook his head a little. “You do.” 

“I what?” Richie glanced up at the sink to make sure it was still running, paranoid for a moment that Ben was still outside and could hear. His brain mapped out the exact points where Eddie’s hand laid on his leg, memorizing. He was thrumming.

“You  _ do  _ take good care a me.” He sighed, an effort, His voice was just loud enough to worry Richie that someone could hear. Eddie started to pick his head up, wandering hand then going for the glass. Richie immediately missed it, but he was glad Eddie was taking a drink. 

Richie steadied it for him, brow knit. His head was buzzing but painfully sober despite the heat that had been spreading through it on the dance floor. Didn’t take much to sober him up, huh. “Drink up,” was all he could think to say, for once. 

But Eddie wasn’t done. He managed to prop himself on an elbow on the porcelain seat, wobbly head taking a moment to balance. “I feel like- I feel like evrybody takes carea me,” he muttered, gaining steam. He pressed his lips together, brow tense. “I donwanT-“ he punctuated the t- “I feel like—“ he palmed his sweaty forehead, sighing.

Richie waited, nervous, encouraging him to the glass. He wasn’t sure why this felt so dire. He felt muzzled, couldn’t bring himself to say anything, not really wanting Eddie to continue but unable to stop him. 

“I donwanna be takencare’f all the fugging time, I don’t  _ need–“  _ he paused, Richie looked on, wide eyed, Eddie pressed his forehead into his propped palm, letting it slide to the crook of his elbow. “I dunno maybe I needa–“

“Drink, cmon.” Richie gently cupped the side of his head to help him lift it again. There was something more here than the fear of him getting belligerent; that Richie wasn’t too afraid of. There were some layers peeling back here and he didn’t wanna let Eddie start on a track that would take him down a bad, alcohol addled road. There was too much to unpack there for tonight. Richie had spent nights on different bathroom floors at the end of that road, tearful and frustrated and confused, he didn’t wanna see anyone fall into that. Least of all Eddie. His stomach panged, voice tender than he’d meant it, almost pleading. “Eds, c’mon.” 

Eddie did, after a moment. He submitted to a sip, a couple little gulps, letting out air afterward. Richie kept a hand at his cheek, keeping his head supported and his glass supported and his general weight supported just in case. The curve of his jaw fit nicely in his palm. 

Eddie left him with a dark, warm stare before his eyes closed again, the weight of his head starting to fall into Richie’s palm. “Y’know what I mean.” 

A lump formed in his throat. “Yeah.” 

Eddie voice raised slightly. “I think you like– I think you, with me. Y’know.”

_ Oh boy. Here he goes.  _

Richie suddenly felt like he was little again and trapped on playground equipment, strapped to the swings or the roundabout while the big kids tossed him around in dizzying circles. “Eddie, we don’t have t—”

“Loved me a little, whenwewere kids.” His voice fell again, barely audible. “I think you did, Rich.”

Richie couldn’t fathom for the life of him what he looked like or what emotion he was feeling, face absolutely blank. Queasy, definitely. He was definitely queasy again. He worried for a second that he was going to have to shove Eddie out of the way or puke in the tub, desperately trying to reassure himself that if Eddie was drunk enough to say this shit that he was drunk enough to forget it. He had to be. 

“Eddie, cmon, you gotta get up we gotta get you some toast or something–“

“ _ Nnonononuhuh _ ,” the little bastard said, a little grin crawling onto his face, like this was now fun for him. Richie’s heart nearly stopped. “Not gettin outtathisun, Trashmouth.” 

A rap on the door made Richie flinch, suddenly feeling like a caged bird. 

A muffled “ _ You guys okay in there? _ ”

“Yeah”, Richie panted over a soft “ _ whossit” _ from Eddie, “yeah, he’s good, we’re about to come on out.” 

Mike gave them a slow  _ alright  _ and seemed to retreat, at which point Richie decided it was officially time to Eddie to his feet. This little powwow had gone on long enough. He reached over Eddie to use the sink to help him up, moving the glass onto the counter as he did, heart pulsing in his brain and his fingertips and the soft insides of his elbows. “Alright, Sir Barfsalot, get your little ass off the floor.” 

There was a sincere effort made, but Richie had him under the armpits in a moment to get him upright. He was heavy on him even then, and Richie did his best to straighten his shirt and get him situated. He couldn’t bring himself to tuck in his stupid ducktail. Eddie looked a little miffed, having lost track of the conversation.

Might be a good sign, might be something Richie was destined to ruin. 

“You want me to be straight with you, Eds?” he said, feeling a strange surge of confidence fueled only by the facts that he was: A. still a little drunk and B. positive Eddie would not remember this conversation clearly. Not with that dopey look on his face.

Eddie didn’t know why he was sure about it, but the answer was yes. He offered a slow nod. Be straight with him. 

Without noticing the tremble running through his whole body, Richie shouldered Eddie’s weight, holding one arm over his shoulders and close to his chest, and turned his head toward him, tucking against Eddie’s ear so no one else could hear. “I had a  _ crush  _ on you when we were kids. I’ve been in love with you for the past couple years or so.” He grunted as he got Eddie properly as he could to his feet, picking his head up and getting his voice to the usual volume. “Get it right if you’re gonna start throwing accusations around like that.” He knocked on the bottom of the door with the toe of his sneaker. “Mikey!” he called. “C'mere, get the door. I’m gonna need help with this idiot sack of potatoes.”

Eddie and Stanley were given toast, which they both complained about eating. Beverly, having won, had one victory glass of wine and razzed Eddie as much as he would allow before getting actually angry. She apologized for tanking him, but it was clear she really only felt badly because the poor guy was so averse to having his head in the toilet and it was clearly unpleasant for him. Mike and Ben ended up wrestling at one point as things started to wind down, which Richie wanted a part of, but couldn’t get in without getting crushed. He instead hopped around the two of them as if walking on hot coals, careful not to step on any fingers, commentating like a sports announcer to entertain Beverly, who was the only one paying attention at that point. 

They’d set up their two lightweights on the couch, who were leaning heavily on each other and giggling at each other lightly, caught up in their own conversation as they started to sober up. Richie snuck Eddie’s camera out of his bag and took a couple pictures for him. He’d get his pictures of all of them at Beverly’s show. He knew he’d regret not taking any now just because of Bill’s unfortunate absence. 

Richie helped pick up cups and beer cans around the apartment, accepting a few glasses of water from a kindly concerned Stanley, who had recovered and seemed to be sobering up. He disappeared for a moment to find some spare pillows and blankets and Richie took a moment to slip outside for a quick smoke, chatting idly with Beverly who tagged along. He kept things light, feeling oddly tense and scared after the summersaults his heart had been doing so far that night, and when Bev headed inside, Richie finished off the last two cigarettes in his pack, trying to let the nicotine buzz drown out his tumbling thoughts. 

Eddie wouldn’t remember and Ben didn’t hear. These two things he had to be sure of, just so he could get to sleep that night. 

When he returned, Mike had started setting up camp on the floor in front of the TV stand where they’d been dancing, Beverly having claimed the couch. No one complained. She offered Richie a few potato chips she produced seemingly magically out of her duffle bag, having changed into a sweatshirt and shorts. 

“I still have your shirt at my place, the one with your college on it,” he told her. 

She smiled, nudging him. “Good, you look hot in that. I still think men should wear crop tops, I’m bummed that’s going out of style.” 

“Should I wear a crop top to your show?” 

“You won’t be allowed in otherwise. I’ll make sure of it” 

Beverly had gotten around to handing out her invites at some point. Richie could see one sticking out of Mike’s bag as he started to settle in. Ben had brought a sleeping bag which was previously rolled up on the floor in Stan’s room, so Richie assumed he was sleeping there. The door was just barely ajar, but the light was on. Richie peeked in briefly to say goodnight and to grab his stuff, somewhat glad things had calmed down for the night. Stan’s clock reminded him glaringly how fucking late it had gotten. Ben was laying on his back in sweats across the foot of Stan’s bed, Eddie and Stan sitting up against the pillows, also having changed, all of them talking idly. Eddie had gotten the color back in his face. Richie tugged on some flannel pants in the bathroom and rinsed his mouth again (toothbrush forgotten), then padded back out to take up residence in the armchair. He felt a little like Marmaduke, crammed up in a chair much too small for him, but somewhat comforted. It felt kind of nice to curl up on himself like this after all that. Bundled up and pleased about it. He dragged a blanket off the floor from the pile Stan had set out for them, head already feeling a little achy. His neck was gonna hurt like a bitch in the morning, but he was still tipsy enough not to care. 

It felt like he’d only dozed for a moment when he next blinked his eyes open, but found the apartment now dark, Ben snoring from the room over. He jumped when he noticed a silhouette standing in front of the chair.

“ _ Jezzum— _ ”

“Fuck—” came Eddie’s voice, strained but not full volume. “Shh—Sorry.” 

Richie blinked, adjusting his glasses. They were digging into the bridge of his nose. Youch. He winced. “What’s up?” 

“Can I sleep out here?” 

Richie squinted. “I ain’t gonna stop ya, dude.” 

Eddie sounded better, voice a little dry, but much more sober. Then again, Ben had been practically pouring water down his throat the hour before they settled in for bed, so Richie figured he would have bounced back. “I thought you were gonna sleep in Stan’s room.” 

“There’s no room.” 

“He has a double bed and you both weigh like sixty pounds each, what do you mean there’s no room?” 

Eddie was silent for a moment. Richie figured it was safe to take his glasses off now. He couldn’t see anything anyway. He set them on the table between the couch and the chair. Eddie hovered. “What? Do you need a blanket? They’re right here.” 

“No, I have one, just.” A beat. “I’m sorry I was a mess back there.” 

_ He doesn’t remember. He can’t. He doesn’t. Not details. _

“No big, man, do you know how many times I’ve thrown up in front of or on one of you guys?” 

“Yeah, whatever, I don’t do that shit.”

“You got drunk, it’s okay.” Richie adjusted in the chair. “I just hope you’ve learned not to try and out-drink Beverly.” 

“Yeah, I’m never pulling that shit ever again. Apparently Stanley won ten bucks betting I’d make an ass of myself.”

“Oh, you do that fine without alcohol.” Richie wanted to swat jokingly at him, but didn’t wanna miss and slap him in the balls or something stupid. Couldn’t see shit. “Are you gonna stand there all night? Sleep standing up like the little freak you are?” 

Richie thought he heard a dry little snicker. “No, I’m here to take your chair from you.” 

Richie blew out of the corner of his mouth. “You can wrestle me for it and I will pin your little ass to the ground, like hell you will. Go sleep with Stan.”

“I don’t wanna sleep with Stan.” 

“Then grab a piece of carpet, bucko, or get ready to play king of the armchair and get your ass kicked.

Eddie hung his head, giggling lightly. The sound surrounded Richie’s weary ears and made his brain feel all pleasant static. “Can’t sleep on the carpet, remember?” 

Richie looked at him blankly. He loved that laugh, sure but he was a little lost on what was so funny. 

Eddie covered his mouth with his hand briefly, gathering himself. “Man, the first time my mom let me sleep over at Bill’s? Anywhere, actually? With the sheets and the f— the fucking—”

“ _ Oh _ —” Richie chuckled, remembering suddenly, an image of Eddie stepping out of his mom’s beat up station wagon and jogging up Bill’s driveway vivid in his mind. “The  _ mites _ , the carpet mites.” 

The two of them snickered as under their breath as possible, hiccuping dizzily in an attempt not to wake Bev. “You remember that? The mites thing?” 

“Oh, I remember the mites, and I don’t think Mrs. Denbrough will forget it ‘til her dying day.” 

“Jesus God,” Eddie said, settling lightly on the arm of the chair beside where Richie’s knees were draped over it. “I really think my mom almost made her pass out.” 

“Did she call ahead to find out what size bed Bill had or did she just guess?”

Eddie, most unfortunately and insultingly, had arrived that fateful afternoon, ecstatic for his first sleepover, with a stack of clean bedsheets from home in his backpack. Meant to be put onto Bill’s bed where, Sonia had insisted, he would have to sleep—alone, mind you—as he could  _ never _ sleep on the carpet, as he was apparently allergic to  _ dust mites _ that week. Which Sonia seemed sure that the Denbrough’s carpet was just chock full of. 

Eddie pressed his face into his hands, shoulders shaking, scrambling for breath that wasn’t too loud or labored. It really shouldn’t be that funny, but everything was always somehow gut-bustingly funnier late at night when you’re trying desperately not to wake anyone up. “No sh—I  _ hah— _ I had  _ both _ I had a twin and a double set. Yeah.”

Richie leaned back over the opposite arm of the chair, head tipped back, mouth open, laughing silently into the quiet of the room. He reached for Eddie’s shin for something to hold on to, taking in a great gasp of air and trying to hold down the hysterical laughter that was filling up his chest. “Yh- you- fuck—” He swallowed hard, taking a deep breath and looking up at Eddie with tears in his eyes. “ _ Little Eddie can’t sleep on the floor, the carpet might have mites— _ ”

“ _ But just in case your lovely h _ —” Eddie hiccuped— “ _ home has ff-fucking  _ bed bugs _ , too, Mrs. Denbrough, I’ve sent him with his own fucking set of sheets _ —”

“And about a dozen sets of undies in case he shits himself every hour on the hour  _ ow _ —”

Eddie thumped him on the thigh. “How the fuck did you know about that?” he sounded suddenly serious and Richie very nearly busted up aloud. 

He hugged his ribs, looking up at Eddie for mercy. “Bill—Bill and I panty raided your bag while you were asleep,” he wheezed. 

“You did not.” 

Richie nodded, delirious and exaggerated, hand pressed to his forehead. A tear rolled down his cheek. He scarcely had a second to breathe before Eddie was suddenly most definitely in the chair with him, grasping at his throat as if to choke him. He braced his hands against Eddie’s narrow shoulders, cackling as quietly as he could, letting out a rough  _ oofh _ when Eddie nearly kneed him in the gut crawling on top of him. 

“ _ Offa _ me, you feral fucking squirrel—”

“You were such a little  _ pervert _ , why the  _ hell _ were we ever friends—” 

“We just wanted to try a couple hits of your inhaler to see what it did, we were trying to find it—” 

“Guys,” came a tired deep voice from the floor. 

The two of them froze, looking over to see the hazy form of a tired Mike picking his head up from beyond the coffee table. Beverly grunted rather rudely on the couch and flipped over, seemingly dead to rights. 

“I love you both, but it’s almost four AM.”

Richie felt Eddie wither on top of him. “Sorry.” 

“Sorry, Mikey.”

He peered through the darkness of the living room at the pair of them.“What the hell are you two doing?” 

“I was just getting down I’m sleeping on the fl—”

“I’m gonna sleep on the f—” 

Richie and Eddie looked back at one another, scrambling, Richie quickly muscling Eddie off of him and sliding down to the carpet. “I get to keep the blanket.”

“Fine,” Eddie hissed.

“Thank you,” Mike said, settling back down. “Drink some water, both of you.” 

“Okay, Mike.” 

“Thanks, Dad.” 

Eddie had just situated his ass into the seat of the chair when Beverly stirred suddenly, loudly calling out for him in the stillness of the apartment.

“Eddie?” 

He looked down to Richie for help, Richie shrugged. Bev, still seeming generally three sheets to the wind, opened her arms, fanning her hands inward. “Eddie, there’s room, c’mere.”

Richie could have sworn Eddie was blushing. Beverly sounded still quite hammered, clearly having no care or control for her volume level. Richie noticed Mike quietly pull his pillow over his ears, not willing to fight that battle. 

“ _ C’mere _ ,” she insisted, and Eddie got up automatically.

“I’m taking the chair back.” 

“Shut  _ up _ , Richie.”

Beverly hummed as Eddie sat down on one of the couch cushions, lacing her arms around his waist and making quick time of pulling him down. “C’mere, we’re both little.” 

Richie snickered, and Eddie could feel his whole head grow hot. “Bev, I dunno—” 

And they settled quite easily onto the couch together. This must be a slightly larger than average couch, Eddie thought, somewhat bitterly. Beverly was also not all that little, she was an inch taller than him and not much shorter than Stanley, but he couldn’t really argue with her. And he’d rather argue that  _ he _ was not little, which he knew was a losing battle given the current audience. Beverly hooked her chin over Eddie’s shoulder and he sighed, realizing there was no way out of this one. Until she fell asleep and limp enough that he could sneak out and get back into the ch— 

Richie was already back in the chair. 

“ _ Hey _ .” 

“I said what I said.” 

Eddie glowered. 

Richie gave him a Cheshire Cat grin. “Didn’t take you for a little spoon.”

“If given the chance, I would back you over with a snow plow.” 

“Why would you back someone over with a snow plow? Why not plow me with the big stupid sharp plow on the front? Use the business end.”

Eddie burned. “Oh, I’ll plow you—”

“Guys.”

“Sorry, Mike.” 

“Sorry, Mikey.” 

There was a pause, night silence settling over the room for the first time.

Beverly was quickly to break it, a little loud in Eddie’s ear. “G’nite, boys.” She patted his head a little roughly.

“Night, Beverly.” 

“Goodnight, Miss Ringwald.”

Eddie forced his eyes closed, praying that maybe morning would come and maybe it wouldn’t. His head was hazy with details that didn’t quite make sense, keeping him up fretting, but to no avail. “G’night.” 

Sleep won him over quicker than he thought, leaving him with neon colored hangover dreams and a pounding headache the moment the first beam of morning light tiptoed through the slats of Stan’s blinds, questions both unasked and unanswered. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song mentioned:   
> Don't You Want Me - The Human League


	9. STUTTERING BILL AND DERRY’S GREAT ANNOYANCE TAKE THE GRANDVIEW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> This chapter contains some spooky elements. Nothing graphic or heavy gore, but this is fanfiction for a Stephen King book/horror movie series, after all. I couldn’t let myself slide without including at least one horror chapter.  
> The whole clown arc won't come to full fruition over this plot, but it was important to me to add in some spice and explore some fun clown magic and ideas I had in that realm. The horror elements aren't integral to the romantic plot of this whole thing, but it adds some Flavor and is really fun to write. This chapter specifically is sort of a little bonus episode. Not a huge game changer in the plot but it's still a good time and some of the elements and details come back into minor play later. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

**14 DECEMBER 1996**

**PORTLAND, MAINE**

**3:12 PM**

“We could go to N-n— to Niagara Falls.” 

Richie caught the hackysack in his left hand. “Niagara Falls? How far is that from here?” 

“Less than ten hours, I’m p-pretty sure.” 

“That’s very vague Bill. And not super duper promising.” 

Richie and Bill’s day trip plans were, to say the least, hardly plans at all. The so-called plan had been to meet up at Bill’s place and go from there. 

This box had been checked. 

“Better than your idea.”

“You and I would have a blast in Vegas.” 

“We d-don’t have the money to get to Vegas, let alone to _b-be_ in Vegas for more than ten m-min-minutes.” 

Bill did have a point there. Richie sighed, picking at a loose thread on the hackysack. He tilted his head to look at Bill, perched on his coffee table, hands folded, hair down. It now fell past his collar bones, still stick straight, still touched with red in the right light. And Bill still wore his flannels and his t-shirts like an easygoing uniform. There was some sort of comfort in the fact that he hadn’t changed much in that aspect, that he still looked like a kid from semi-rural Maine and still felt like Big Bill. Big was no lie, the man was pushing 6’4” at this point, although he managed, even with the hair and the height, to come across as the least intimidating person Richie knew. Bill was still himself, still came by himself with brutal honesty. 

Richie avoided thinking too hard on that fact, on comparing himself too harshly to that fact. “You said how many hours?” 

“Less than ten. We c-could take my car.”

Bill had sworn that he really didn’t stutter much anymore and that it really only came out around the Losers. That Richie struggled to believe, but then again, being one of the Losers, he really couldn’t prove or disprove the fact. 

“Yeah, mine wouldn’t make it.” 

Like clockwork, the two of them stuffed snacks and beer into coolers, jeans into backpacks, socked feet into sneakers, and were out within the hour. It had just started to snow outside of Bill’s little apartment, set back beside a dingy little alley just on the fringe of a suburb. Bill’s car was an old tan SUV he’d bought with his own money from his first job at 16. Richie picked up a sun-faded baseball cap that sat above the console, words too scuffed to read, and whipped it onto his head, turning it backwards as they set out. The Christmas tree mirror hanger made the whole car smell like pine, conflicting with the stale scent of weed and Richie’s cigarettes. Richie stared at it for a moment, swinging idly. 

It wasn’t that Richie disliked Christmas, Christmas this year just meant an end to this for the foreseeable future. Over would be the days of hopping in the car and arriving at Bill’s a few hours later, fucking off to do whatever the hell they pleased and missed out on in high school. In a lot of ways, it felt like being on the back of Bill’s bike again, clinging to his middle and screaming in his ear as they barreled down the street toward whatever trouble they felt like stirring up that particular afternoon. 

It was getting dark by the time they pulled out of Bill’s parking lot. The plan was to drive until they were hungry (dinner hungry, not munchies hungry), pick something up from the first drive thru they passed, and settle into the nearest seedy motel. They’d get a few hours of sleep in before hitting the falls the next morning. Richie DJed, swapping cassettes in and out of Bill’s glovebox and skipping around easily to find the right song, both of them singing to pass the time as the sun washed them in it’s last vivid colors of the day. A stream of monotonous Maine highway streaked past them like a tired filmstrip on repeat, the grey pavement stretching out seemingly endlessly before them, shoulders freckled with the occasional opossum or deer. There were enough cars to keep the snow from settling on the highway, but the trees alongside were starting to frost over on the end of each bare branch like a little model Christmas town. They made it until 9PM before they’d exhausted Richie’s stash of chips and Bill’s jerky.

The Grandview Motel sat just off an exit across the highway from a McDonalds, and was deemed by both of them as just about good enough. Richie personally enjoyed its sign, a faded and slightly ominous thing looming over the highway complete with a comically large arrow, lined with flickering Edison bulbs, gesturing toward the squat little building. He and Bill ordered entirely too many dollar menu items and headed for the sign, Richie satisfied with their haul in three paper bags settled warmly on his lap. 

“No snow,” Bill noted as they pulled into the parking lot. 

The place must be some kind of popular, considering the number of cars jammed into its tiny lot. It was a small building, two floors, dwarfed slightly by the sheer size of its sign. But it appeared Bill was right. The flurries must have slowed down without them noticing, it must not have been cold enough here for anything to stick. The parking lot, the cars, and the roof of the motel itself were clear.

They squeezed into a spot (Richie making Bill wait until “Personal Jesus” had ended before turning off the ignition) and clambered out, Bill shouldering his duffel and Richie his backpack, and stared up at the sign for a moment, held in its chilly shadow. 

“Did it say ‘vacancy’ when we saw it pulling up?” 

Bill shook his head slowly. “Maybe they j-just turned it on.” 

Surely enough, the sign did announce, in dusty yellow neon, _VACANCY_ , despite the state of the parking lot. Richie grabbed their food and followed Bill inside, only distracted briefly by a red 68’ GTO that Eddie would have geeked out over. 

Richie whistled when he passed over the threshold. “Retro.” The two of them looked immediately out of place in the lobby, decked in their grungy neutrals. It was much nicer than Richie had expected (which made him worry for a moment about the price), but a little ping of excitement ran through him on first look around. The lobby was a riot of mint green and powder pink, the carpet some loud creeping pattern which marched toward a dark wooden desk. Pink couches lined the walls, leading on one side to a currently empty bar and to an elevator on the other. 

Richie noticed Bill’s pained look over his shoulder a moment later, remembering quickly his usual position as the Mouth. There was no reason for Bill to stumble over his words when he had Richie with him to do the talking, whether he asked him to or not. He readjusted their food bags in his arms and approached the desk, manned by one skinny bellhop in a teal uniform. 

There was no real reason to ring the bell, as the bellhop was staring the two of them down with a pair of large grey eyes as it was, but Richie had to go to great mental lengths to keep from tapping it, instead slapping his hand down on the counter a little too loudly next to it. 

“Hiya, do you have room for two more?” 

The bellhop seemed to almost look through Richie for a moment, and Richie glanced behind him to find Bill hunkered down just over his shoulder. He didn’t exactly look like he was trying to hide behind Richie, but there was something defensive in his stance. Richie returned his gaze to the bellhop when he spoke up. 

“Where you two comin’ from?” His voice was dry, as if he hadn’t used it in a while. 

“Portland.” 

The bellhop narrowed his eyes. “All we got left is single rooms.”

“That’s fine,” Richie said, unable to keep from glancing to Bill. The two of them had shared a bed no problem enough times before. And while he’d fucked himself over thinking that same statement last time, he was pretty damn sure this would go over fine. Slightly different circumstances.

Bill still looked tense, his eyes not leaving the bellhop. He cleared his throat, which signaled to Richie that maybe he should also feel a little tense.

The bellhop now certainly looked tense. He looked between the two of them a couple times, which only increased the growing feeling of awkwardness in the empty lobby. Richie swallowed, giving his best good-no-trouble-no-nonsense-white-boy smile. 

“Aren’t a pair of homosexuals, are you?” 

So nice of him to ask. Richie considered making a joke for just a second, the muscles in his arm tensing about to sling it over Bill’s shoulders, but something in that grey look stopped him, stomach tightening. Not the place. “No sir.” 

“You’ll have to book two rooms. We only got singles left.” 

“That’s f-fine,” Bill said, standing close over Richie’s shoulder. Richie did not glance at him that time. “How f-far out would you say we are from N-n-niagra Falls?”

“Falls are ‘bout two and a half hours maybe, not too bad a haul.” He pulled out a large guest book from under the desk, and Richie swore a little cloud of dust kicked up underneath it when he set it heavily in front of him. It made a solid _thunk_ on the wood. “Gonna be eleven each, can you boys afford that?” 

Richie opened his mouth, confused, but Bill spoke over him without missing a beat. “Sure thing.”

Richie was expecting maybe thirty bucks each. 

Still looking skeptical, the bellhop tapped the next empty lines in the guestbook— “Names.” —and turned behind him to pick two keys off the wall behind him. Richie signed and passed the pen to Bill, noticing for the first time that there were exactly two keys among the empty rows of pegs. 

“Is there any way we could get rooms closer t—” 

“138 and 217.” 

Richie should have figured. A sense of unease had planted itself firmly in his gut, not helped by the cold gaze the two of them were given as the bellhop checked their names and handed over their keys. Richie turned his over in his palm. It even had one of those old hexagonal tags with the number on it. He passed 217 to Bill. 

“Denbrough?” 

“Yess-sir.” 

“Your dad’s not Charles Denbrough, is he?” 

“No sir.” 

The bellhop sniffed, never blinking, and Bill made the executive decision to thank him quietly and head toward the elevator. Richie followed a beat later, noticing for the first that there was someone hunkered over at the bar. 

“Great to know the one employee we’ve seen in this supposedly packed motel is some gigantic creep,” Richie said around a mouthful of fries. Bill had instructed him to drop off his backpack in his room on the first floor and come up to meet him a little while later, having a bad feeling. 

Richie learned not to ignore Bill’s bad feelings a long time ago. Then again, he had to be careful not to run with Bill headfirst straight into his bad feelings, as Bill sometimes did. A thought nagged at the back of his head like a gnat buzzing around his ears, but it wouldn’t manifest clearly. “Did I imagine the guy at the bar when we were leaving?” 

“I d-don’t think so,” Bill said, which was strangely worrying. Richie had just wanted a straight yes or no there, but he didn’t always get what he wanted. “I do th-think you should stay in y-your own room tonight, though.” 

“Damn, Bill, and here I was thinking I was gonna get a good snuggle out of you on this trip. Why did I even bother coming?” He went for another chicken nugget, shaking his head. “They’re not gonna know, and given that we, in fact, are not _a pair a homosexuals_ ,” he made a valiant effort in impersonating the bellhop’s tone, unable to get his voice quite hollow enough, “I don’t see the problem. We got the rooms for criminally cheap, man. Hope that doesn’t mean there’s possums in the walls or something.” 

Bill blinked, eyebrows heavy over his face. “Bad feeling.” 

“Right, right.” 

Bill crumpled up his plain cheeseburger wrapper, wiping his hands on his jeans. “How was th-the th-thing at Stan’s?” 

“It was awesome, I still can’t believe you didn’t come, man. Eddie and Mike looked like lost puppies every time we mentioned you.” 

Bill looked distinctly guilty. “Man.” He shook his head. “I p-prob-bably should have come anyway.” 

“I told you, dude, you don’t have to ‘clean up your act’ or whatever the fuck you were so worried about, we all miss you, man.” 

“I know,” Bill said, not convinced. “It’s just b-been a while.” 

“Yeah, for everybody.” Richie nudged him with his foot. “You gotta chill out about this, dude, so what if school’s not going as planned, look at me for Pete’s sake.”

“I’m gonna make it to B-bev’s, I promise.” 

“Yeah, you’d fucking better. And get over the idea we’re gonna think less of you for self medicating a little, we’re all adults.”

“I’m gonna be there, okay?” 

“That you can’t make excuses for, that’s for Bev. That’ll feel straight up personal and hurt her feelings, and you know how we handle jackasses who hurt Bev’s feelings.”

Bill smiled. “T-talk em to death?” 

“No, not just me, moron, all of us.” 

“Right, then imm-m-mediate death sentence.” 

“That’s the ticket.”

Bill smiled at him as Richie clapped him on the shoulder, finishing off his last nugget to fall backward into the lumpy mattress.

“How was Eddie’s?” 

Richie remembered mentioning staying at Eddie’s in passing the other night, but his face still ran hot the moment Bill brought it up. He stared at the ugly light fixture on the ceiling, lacking its bulb. The rooms were a little less aesthetically pleasing than the lobby had been. “It was good.” It felt like he needed to add more for that statement to even resemble something convincing. It felt much too much like he was hiding something. Words fled his mouth before he had a chance to stop them. “He said something that’s been kinda bugging me though.” 

Bill waited for Richie to go on, knowing he would.

He did. “It sounded like he didn’t remember us getting chased around and subsequently drop-kicked by Bowers in middle school.” 

_Bowers_. That was the bastard’s name. It felt like some puzzle piece clicked in sitting here with Bill that wouldn’t budge when he was with Eddie. When Bill said nothing again, Richie’s stomach sank. He sat up, face pale. 

“Tell me y—”

“I remember B-bowers,” he said, much to Richie’s relief. 

Richie stared at him, willing him to say more. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Eddie said some bullshit about some lunatic chasing us around.” 

“A l-lunatic _was_ chas-sing us around.” 

“No, like an adult lunatic. Like a serial killer or something.” 

That _or something_ suddenly felt like it had a weight to it, like the air in the room grew a hair denser. Richie watched Bill’s back grow tense, suddenly remembering huddling against him for dear life on the back of Bill’s ridiculous bike, teetering away from _or something_ that felt like sheer terror. Richie snuck in a little breath, the memory growing sharp for one instant. 

Bill was wearing a big coat. Bill had his dad’s gun under the coat. They were fleeing. 

“He ki-killed his dad.”

“What?” Richie said, snapping back to the present. 

“Bowers.” 

Richie stared blankly at Bill, unsure of what to say. His stomach twisted for a moment, the weight of the idea that the child who had threatened murder so many times to his face had actually gone and done it not settling right with him. 

It seemed Richie had successfully escaped more than he knew in his short 20 years. 

“Holy fucking shit, dude.” 

“Yeah.” Bill looked somewhere far away for a moment, eyes a little hazy and distant. It frightened Richie for a split second before he seemed to return to normal. “You didn’t m-miss much when you left, but you d-did miss that. There w-w-was a trial and everyth-thing.”

“God.” Richie suddenly wanted this conversation to end, despite having brought it up. He’d been curious at first, figuring that, if anyone, Bill could answer why the hell he and Eddie had such wildly different ideas about that summer. But now that he realized that Bill might have some of the answers, he suddenly didn’t wanna know. “We should probably get some sleep, big guy, we still gotta admire Mother Nature in all her terrifying waterlogged glory tomorrow.”

Bill turned to look directly at him, slowly, the light in the room passing strangely over his face. “Good point.” He patted the top of Richie’s thigh and stood up, heading for his bag in one corner of the room to change. “C-call down to my room,” he trailed off.

Richie blinked. “Why?” 

Bill looked up, seeming to just then notice he dropped off in the middle of a sentence. “Oh,” he said, giving him a reassuring smile. “Just if you m-m-miss me.” 

“I’ll miss you every second, Billy boy.” 

Richie didn’t realize how right he was until Bill’s door shut heavily behind him, leaving him in a deserted yellow-lit hallway. Their brief conversation left him a little more shaken up than he liked. Hands in his pockets, he decided to snag his Marlboros from his room and head outside for a minute before getting to bed. Clear his mind a little. 

He padded mindlessly down the hallway toward the elevator, mind whirring, needing nicotine. Bowers had finally drawn blood. Richie felt like maybe that was before he’d left, maybe he had been there for it, maybe the reality of it was too big for his 14 year old brain and it had simply decided not to accept it. The more he picked at that mental scab, the crustier it seemed to get, red and irritated but revealing nothing substantial underneath. He was only rewarded with flashes, sensory details, like the feeling of Mr. Denbrough’s gun under Bill’s coat on a too-hot summer afternoon. The smell of coal. An old bruise on his shoulder. Mucky tennis shoes. The click of a switchblade. 

Richie arrived at the bar. The man he’d seen upon their arrival was still there, nursing a drink, evidently alone. No bartender. 

Richie stopped dead in his tracks, not even so much as swiveling his eyes around the lobby. He’d just come from the second floor. The lobby was on the ground floor, as was his room. He hadn’t gone down any stairs. 

He stood there for a moment before snapping out of it, heart rate having just barely picked up. He glanced toward the desk, finding no bellhop. Perhaps for the best. Part of him worried he’d think he was up to no good, know he’d just come from Bill’s room and think none too highly of it. 

_Relax, it shouldn’t be abnormal for two twenty year old guys to hang out and eat together for bed. No one’s here to crucify you._

The man at the bar was looking at him. 

Richie looked back. He blinked again, thinking a trick of the light was doing something funny to his face. His eyes watered as if irritated by something in the air. He was far enough away that the lighting could have been tricking his brain, but no, he realized a moment later. An angry burn scar occupied more than half of the man’s face, revealing the white glitter of teeth on one side, the tendons in his neck strained, purple, close to the mangled skin. Richie froze, a voice that wasn’t his own inside his head telling him it was rude to stare. 

Bill thought for a moment that his eardrums had exploded. He whipped upright, sweat popping out on his brow, confronted only with the darkness of his room and the ringing in his ears. It was as if something had popped right next to his ear, a large balloon blown far past capacity and erupting into a million little scraps of rubber. It felt like moments ago that Richie had left his room, but there he was tucked into bed. He took several deep breaths, swallowing down what felt like a now familiar bitter tinge of fear on the back of his tongue, and listened. 

Running water gurgled languidly. Smoothly, silently, Bill crawled to the other side of his hotel bed to pull the chord for the lamp, finding a growing puddle trickling in under his door. The dark green carpet seemed to blacken as the water seeped further into the room. Without thinking, Bill reached for his sneakers, not taking his eyes off the steady little flood. He rose, dressed only in sweatpants and an undershirt, and stepped to the door. His shoes sank into the wet shag carpet. 

The door didn’t make a sound as he pulled it open, cautious, as if someone might be on the other side. He was faced only with a stream, a real bubbling stream, trickling down the hall from an unseen source. It spanned the entire hallway, an inch or so deep, just enough to reach the canvas of Bill’s sneakers above the rubber soles and seep inside, wetting his feet, cold. He should have put on socks. Almost mechanically, filled with a sinister sort of calm despite the heave in his breath, Bill stepped out to the middle of the hallway, facing the direction of the flow, and began to follow.

Richie was lost. He was sure there was no way he could be lost, there was no way he could have not noticed he went down a floor, there was no way he could be as turned around as he was in a little two story motel on the side of the road somewhere between Maine and New York.

And there was absolutely no way he could have arrived at room 609. Richie knew, sanely and truly, that there was no room 609 in this two story motel. Yet there it was, the brass number glaring mockingly back at him on the dark stained wood of the door. 

Richie cursed fluently under his breath, reeling to retrace his steps. Turned left out of Bill’s room, floor two. Proceeded straight down hallway. Arrived at bar, floor one. Turned back around, still on floor one. Passed room 102, room 104, room 106, the hallway turned right. The hallway veered. The hallway ended in stairs. Went up to find Bill’s room. Went down. Went— 609. 

“I am so beyond fucked,” he muttered, coldness settling into his gut. “This is fucked.” He turned around twice in front of the door, breath coming a little quick. He’d physically checked for a tab in his mouth at one point, wondering briefly if he and Bill had brought a little acid along and decided to trip for no fucking reason and he’d just forgotten because there was no way the lines of the floor should be angled like that like the fucking hallway was getting longer. 

A bottle smashed behind door 609 and Richie yelped, bolting off like he’d suddenly realized he was being chased. The hallway wasn’t that long after all, he realized almost too late, as he nearly smashed into the back wall. A placid little still life painting of some sunflowers was mounted there. So fucking quaint. He looked to his left and to his right, finding no one, hearing nothing, moving on instinct rather than with any rationality. Rationality was lost the moment he’d somehow arrived at the 6th floor of a two story building, the moment Bill’s room was 100 miles from his own. He set to wandering, half frantic, clinging to sanity, eventually setting his palm upon the right wall of the hallway and deciding to follow it like a maze. Follow the right wall and eventually you’ll get out. 

Richie just didn’t know at this point what _out_ meant. This whole place had stopped being _somewhere_ and had mutated into _something_ between Bill’s room and the bar. 

One hallway was lit strangely, as if the bulbs here were different. For a moment the lights along the wall looked more like gas lamps, old fashioned ones like in the Townhouse. He’d stayed there once with his parents when their first floor had flooded, he remembered the green gas lamps now filled with modern light bulbs.

Running made it worse, Richie soon found out. Walking was doing him no good either, but each time he broke into a sprint, the hallway seemed to warp or turn. He lost track of the right hand wall, abandoning that idea. He once nearly barreled full tilt off the top of a steep staircase, descending into a hallway with a flickering light, beckoning. He could have broken his neck. Dizzy from the realization, Richie had discovered a nearby potted plant and had promptly tossed up his dinner. 

Desperate, drenched in sweat, heart twitching around like a rabid animal, Richie kept his eyes sweeping, scanning every door number even when they stopped making numerical sense. He heard a couple arguing once, a harsh slap and a yelp, heard another couple having sex, heard a dog barking and suddenly squeal, then silence, heard a number of things from the nonsense rooms, knowing each of them were occupied by someonesomething. 

And then he saw Bill. 

For a split second, he saw Bill, facing him at the end of the hallway, in his sweats and his undershirt and his once white sneakers. Relief nearly enough to push him to tears, Richie made to cry out to him, voice dying in his throat. Bill stood perfectly still, unseeing. Looking through him, behind him, at absolutely nothing. Richie noticed his shoes were drenched, soaked in mud and filth, blackening the hem of his pants. It was all Richie could do to stare, fear creeping into any crevice he’d managed to previously block it from, saturating his brain. 

Knowing somehow he shouldn’t linger there, he turned, carrying on, leaving what might not really be Bill silently in the other hallway. 

He became acutely aware he was being followed. He never saw the wolf, but he felt it. He heard it’s breathing, snarling, heard the tear of the shag carpet when it caught on a mangled claw, heard the rush of stale air out of its snout as it tracked him through the halls. There was no reason for it to be a wolf, there was no reason for him to believe he was being pursued at all, no reason for him not to have been safely tucked into bed in room 138 hours ago, but he was so sure of it he could feel it in his bones. 

Aimlessly, he padded along the garish meandering pattern of the carpet, the lighting in the hallways seeming to have dimmed to a red orange glow, passing, lo and behold, room 217. The door was ajar, dirty water trickling past it smelling of wet pavement, streaming down the hallway. Richie glanced at the door across the hall, which should have been 218. 217 again, and again, marching down the hall with the drenched carpet, the entire floor swampy, 217 all the way down. Richie heard dragging footsteps behind him, something large and lumbering on all fours, heard it step into the soggy carpet and he continued on, pressing forward, escaping again barely, feeling so full of dread by now he felt unfazed, cold and numb to it. 

The only other open door he passed lead directly into a bathroom with an overflowing clawed foot tub. The shower curtain was drawn, semi-transparent, a silhouette backlit, slumped, hanging unnaturally on the side of the tub. The water which cascaded down onto the white tile was a pastel pink, running out slowly into the hallway, nudging at the toes of Richie’s shoes. His brain couldn’t handle it, didn’t, not registering anymore any of the impossibility, body physically exhausted from what must have been miles and hours of walking with no direction and no destination, and he turned away from the bathroom to the end of the hall, where he stood. 

Clear as day, it was him. Richie Tozier looked blankly back at him, his colorful over shirt too big, his knees scabbed, his coke bottle glasses dwarfing his pale child’s face, one he now only saw in photos, no more in the mirror. Richie stared at himself, feeling something in his mind finally starting to crack, the insanity of the whole thing penetrating too deeply into his consciousness, and the wolf caught up.

There was no doubt about what it was now. 

Richie watched a shadow stretch out across the carpet in front of him as it raised onto its hind legs, shuffling close to his back, it’s rotten breath stale on the back of his neck. He was dimly aware of the fact that he was shaking, that his legs might have given out if not for the tension coiled so tightly in every muscle in his body. He smelled grizzle and blood, felt wet hot drool dribble onto his shoulder, running down the front of his jacket. He watched the shadow on the floor in front of him raise a dinner plate sized paw, the shadow stretching the length of the hall to his adolescent sneakers. 

It was a sewer grate. Bill, face tracked with miserable, furious tears, stood in front of a sewer grate on the second floor of his hotel, watching the stream of water gargle down into it almost cheerfully, plinking into the water below. Something bitter and mean and angry twisted around in his gut, threatening to tear him up from the inside out as he watched, aware both that the image was both all in his head and entirely real. That his shoes were soaked, but they could very well be clean and dry by morning. That if he so desired, he could get on his knees, squeeze his shoulders together, and slide down into the maw of the grate along with the stream of water, and land quite physically and realistically deep below Derry Maine, though hundreds of miles away. 

And he nearly did. Fear having dissolved long ago, replaced by resentment and a coiled, dangerous sort of anger, Bill dropped to the soaked and reeking carpet, pressing his cheek to it, water trickling into his ear. He could slip down easily, he could go down and finish this off.

But somewhere, somewhere decisively not down that rabbit hole, Richie screamed his head off. 

It caught him by the hem of his jacket, clawing through the denim like a hot knife through butter, and Richie was off full tilt, hardly noticing, a deer with one thought in its head of _get away_. The image of himself at the end of the hall dissolved like a mirage, which he knew it only could have been, and he dashed left at the same painting of the sunflowers. It was hot on his heels, now back on all fours, snarling and spitting hot foam from its muzzle, snapping at Richie’s calves each time it got close. Richie stumbled for a heart stopping moment, feeling a three inch claw just barely graze at his ankle, tearing his sock, and adrenaline propelled him forward. 

_Keep up, Richie,_ someone said, one of his friends, his friends whose names he couldn’t remember here, whose faces were lost on him entirely, _keep up. You’re slower than me and I have asth-_

Then his name out loud from a hallway he nearly bolted past, cracking through the haze in his brain. He had a split second to backtrack, hearing the sickening snap of the wolf’s jaw as it lunged for him when he turned on his heel, ankle twinging madly. Bill, again, really Bill, at the end of seemingly the same hallway, but Bill with his hand extended out, face panicked and determined, screaming at him to run faster, to grab his hand, screaming as the hallway stretched longer and longer. It was as if he was on a treadmill, running until his lungs might give out and covering no distance, the hot breath once again at the back of his neck, Bill’s eyes burning with something Richie didn’t have words to describe, and suddenly their hands slapped together and Bill _yanked_. 

Someone was knocking frantically on his door. Richie’s eyes opened slowly, crusted heavily with sleep, brain slow on the uptake that something was happening. 

The curtains were never drawn; it was still dark out. He sat up, realizing he’d fallen asleep on his back, arms crossed over his chest, with the light on. Three odd things, but more pressing was the pounding at the door. Groaning, feeling something close to hungover, Richie dragged himself out of bed, nearly collapsing when his leg cramped. 

“Where’s the fucking fire, man?” He asked no one, shuffling stiffly to the door and opening it to Bill. “What fucking time is it dude, what’s the fucking rush?” 

“I t-told you we were g-gonna leave early, dumbass.” Bill said, already dressed, duffel bag over his shoulder. His hair was wet and smelled of hotel shampoo. 

Richie squinted at him, face blurry without his glasses. “Is four in the fucking morning leaving early to you? I thought you meant like— eight.” 

“It’s f-five th—irty.” 

Richie looked at him, dumbfounded. They hadn’t gone to bed all that late, but he felt entirely too exhausted for this at the moment. His brain throbbed against his skull as he rubbed his tired eyes. “Fucking Christ.”

“Hurry the ff- _fuck_ up, Richie, c’mon.” 

Not quite understanding why this was so dire, Richie shrugged it off and hurried the fuck up. He hadn’t exactly unpacked, it wasn’t going to take long. He blindly pulled on his clothes from the previous day, not bothering to dig for a clean shirt in his backpack, instead just shoving his pajamas inside and slinging it onto his back. He’d brush his teeth after they got breakfast. Bill waited quietly by the door, seeming hurried but not quite impatient with him. Richie quickly snagged his glasses and swept the room to make sure he hadn’t left anything, finding it clean, and heading out with Bill. 

He led him down to the lobby, where Richie thought to mention there might not be anyone to check him out this early, but there was the bellhop, as if he’d never moved. Richie considered that maybe he hadn’t. He seemed as permanently fixed to the lobby as the chandelier overhead. 

Bill tossed thirty dollars onto the desk a little coldly, which seemed just a touch out of character, but Richie figured he could just be a little grumpy this ungodly early. The bellhop said nothing to the two of them as they passed back out over the threshold and into the parking lot, merely looking after them with that thousand yard grey stare. 

“You clearly need a little breakfast, dude, you’re bugging,” Richie said as he settled easily into the passenger seat, again picking up the faded ball cap and setting it over his face. The first pink streaks of sunlight had tinted the darkness of the morning, and Richie was not ready to face the sun when it came. His head still ached, back stiff from sleeping weird in an unfamiliar bed. 

“I’m just ea-eager.”

“To see the big fuckall waterfall?” 

“Yeah.” 

So that wasn’t it. Richie lifted up the bill of the hat to look at him. “M’kay, this something you wanna talk about later then?” 

Bill seemed to examine him for a moment, looking for something in his face he couldn't find. His jaw tensed as he started up the car, twitching in that way it did when something was bothering him. “Maybe.” 

“Let me know.” Richie slumped in the seat, curious but not overly concerned. He knew there was a chance Bill had had some kind of nightmare that got him up early and got him twisted up about it, and he’d tell Richie in time if he wanted to. Richie, it seemed, had slept like a fucking rock. He felt groggy, strangely, as if he’d overslept which he certainly hadn’t. “Wake me up when we stop to eat, huh?” 

Bill sighed, seeming to relax incrementally. Richie could sense he was staring at him again. “S-sure thing, Richie.” 

Bill pulled them over at a little mom and pop diner an hour later. It had started snowing again. Richie was happy with his hands wrapped around a hot chocolate faced with a heaping pile of pancakes, and Bill seemed to have calmed down. He snuck a small bottle of Tabasco out of his shirt pocket to dump all over his eggs, which Richie had to laugh about. They chatted idly, tiredly, enjoying the trip a little more than the destination. The cloud over Bill’s face from that morning seemed to have passed. While Richie realized he was increasingly anxious about why Bill seemed so odd earlier, his thoughts easily curbed around it. 

It was true, in the end, that the trip itself was much more exciting than the destination. The falls, while impressive, were mostly cold and wet. Neither of them had a pancho, and couldn’t exactly get too close without getting drenched, so after a short-lived attempt to get down to the main viewing platform on foot they decided instead to stake out a parking spot and hang in Bill’s car and heater on full blast. The view would have been better closer, but they could see what they came for. Richie munched on another bag of chips, a little stale, found in the very back of the SUV. Richie guessed it was kind of majestic in it’s own right. From what he could see through the flurries and the mist. 

“Is it just m-me, or does it ff-feel like this should b-be m-more i-i-in—”

“Interesting?”

“Inspiring.” 

Richie laughed. “Yeah, it really is just a fuckall waterfall, isn’t it.” 

Bill reached for a chip, grinning. “At least we m-made it in one piece.” 

“Did you think we wouldn’t?”

“Oh, this is a good song, t-turn it up.” Bill reached for the radio to do just that. 

Richie insisted on paying for gas on the way back, Bill having refused to be paid back for the motel rooms, despite how cheap it had been in the end. He was a little touchy about it. 

Richie noticed a vacant turtle shell as they pulled off the highway, maybe three hours into the return trip. It was still too fresh to have simply decomposed. Looked as if a fox had gotten to it or something. Richie wrinkled his nose. 

He held the door for Bill at the gas station, watching him peel off for a moment to grab a couple sodas for the two of them. The cashier was a large, cheerful looking woman, with a pile of firetruck red curls piled up on top of her head, secured by a bandana. Richie gave her a smile and pulled out his wallet. 

“How much on what, honey?” 

“Ten on two, please.” 

He slapped a tenner on the sticky counter and watched the cashier drag it toward herself, bubblegum popping as she popped open the register with a ding and slid the bill into place. 

“You boys look like you had one hell of a late night.” Her voice was gruff, that of a lifelong smoker, deep in her broad chest.

Richie had noticed the heavy bags under his eyes in the outdoor bathroom at the Falls. Bill didn’t look much better. He appeared at Richie’s side with a Pepsi and a Sunkist, setting them silently on the counter. Richie pulled out another two bucks before Bill could stop him and handed them over. “More of an early morning.” 

Bill looked a little guilty at his side. 

“You two from around here?” 

“Portland,” Bill offered, being friendly. “We c-came to see the Falls.” 

“And how were they?”

“Wet,” Richie responded, honestly. 

The cashier laughed, a nice whole sound. Her acrylic nails tapped loudly on the counter. The receipt was taking entirely too long to print, the machine sounding overly exhausted, ticking out one faded line of ink at a time. It was a long receipt for gas and two sodas. Richie tapped his foot, trying desperately not to make more small talk. 

It wasn’t his fault in the end. The cashier decided to break the awkward silence, not him. “You two drive through the night or stay somewhere? My family owns the Super 8 the next exit over.”

“We were at the uh-” Richie glanced to Bill for help, but Bill seemed to be focused on something else. Richie’s brain still felt hangover slow. And he hadn’t even had one beer the whole time. “The Gardenview? Grandview, uh, Grandview Motel last night, actually. It wasn’t too far from here, I think.”

The receipt had stopped printing. Richie continued tapping his foot, weirdly antsy. He stared at the cash register, blinking, then looked back up to the attendant. Her eyes had narrowed. 

“Don’t pull my leg, honey.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Grandview closed down in the late 70s. There’s not much of the building left anyway. Some fire took half of it down along with a couple unfortunate squatters 86. Made big news around here.” 

Richie was at a loss for words. The cashier’s voice circled around his brain several times, confusion not allowing it in. _Closed down, some fire_. The receipt tore loudly and was suddenly shoved in his face. He took a slow moment to take it. Bill snagged their sodas and rescued him, seemingly oddly unfazed. 

“M-musta been G-gardenview. We’re not f-from the area.” He smiled sheepishly and took Richie’s arm and started to lead him out. “Th-thank you, ma’am.” 

She eyed Richie, who still stood there, a little dumbfounded. “Ayuh. Drive safe, boys.” 

That sign had said Grandview. He definitely remembered the sign, it said Grandview. 

Richie stumbled on the way to the car, brain reeling for a memory he wouldn’t let himself access. It felt oddly too familiar. His ankle twinged, making him wince. “What the _fuck_ ,” he said under his breath, hurrying after Bill as he set the sodas on the hood and reached for the pump. Richie shook his head, starting at Bill, who looked a little too pale in the cheerful afternoon sun, shaking his head in similar disbelief. 

“I d-don’t know.” He surely looked like he didn’t, baffled. “I thought maybe—” he shook his head again, seeming to think it was best not to question it. He swore under his breath.

Richie grabbed the sodas and clambered back into the cab, hissing when he bumped his ankle on the way up. He set the cans in the cupholder and pulled his foot into his lap, noticing a hole in his sock, ringed with dry blood. He yanked it down to reveal a nasty looking scratch, feeling his insides grow cold. Memory fought to resurface, but something bigger and darker battled it back. Bill joined him a moment later, staring at the slash on Richie’s ankle, both of them silent. 

After a moment, Richie, unable to think of a single goddamn thing to say, pulled his sock back up, placed his foot on the floor, and cracked open his Pepsi. Bill quietly started the car, both of them staring numbly out the windshield. 

“So we’re uh.” Richie cleared his throat. “We gonna pretend none of that ever happened?” _That_ was something, _that_ was definitely something that had happened, but for the life of him no clear detail came to him when he thought about the Grandview Motel save the hollow gaze of that bellhop. It was different from a hangover after a blackout, different from missing a few key details after a lengthy acid trip. Different but sickeningly familiar. “For the sake of our sanity? Can we agree to that?” 

“I’m n-not gonna argue with th-that.” 

“Cool.” He breathed out, chest tight, swallowing and pushing away any thought of the motel that threatened to enter his brain. Pink couches, bellhop, waking up. “Cool, really groovy, dude.” He cracked Bill’s Sunkist and handed it over to him. He pointed left. “You’re gonna uh, the highway’s that way.” 

Bill shook himself off. “Right.” He put the car in drive, Richie popped in a Mott the Hoople cassette to drown out the sudden deafening silence, and they headed for home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song mentioned:  
> Personal Jesus - Depeche Mode, Francios Kevorkian  
> All The Young Dudes - Mott the Hoople


	10. EDDIE LIES, NOT ONLY TO HIMSELF, BUT TO A FEW OTHERS AS WELL (THOUGH MOSTLY TO HIMSELF)

**19 DECEMBER 1996**

**QUEENS, NEW YORK**

**7:49 PM**

Glad as he was for the few hours of thinking space he had on the drive back from Albany, Eddie used almost none of it to get his head on straight. Most of the time he fussed with the radio and sang lowly along to keep his head occupied. He’d had to leave fairly early that Sunday morning, heading out as soon as his headache wasn’t obscuring his vision to get back to school. Early class Monday, needed rest, needed to keep moving to avoid thinking. 

He did not black out, that he was sure of, definitely, there was no huge patch of time missing, no telltale coming to sensation. He’d heard that was the tell, waking up without having gone to sleep. And he hadn’t, he figured he would know if he’d blacked out, but things were just fuzzy. And many of the fuzzy things made his stomach swirl or drop to his toes. 

He knew he didn’t try to kiss Richie. He was sure of that, he just wouldn’t do that, it didn’t matter how drunk he was. That would be stupid, and he hadn’t, but he did remember the closeness, the proximity of Richie’s face to his face, the curtain that had seemed to fall over the two of them for a moment while they were dancing like two idiots, but no. No kiss, no attempt. No thought of it, no reason to worry. That sensory memory, though, that closeness, was just a little worrying, but Eddie was sure nothing had come of it. 

And Richie had just talked him down in the bathroom. Just chatted. The fuzziness in that was the words, the conversation lost on him, but the physicality was still there. Pressure on his back, a searing in his throat, heat in his head. He was mostly embarrassed about the throwing up part. More his behavior leading up to it, not exactly the actual act, gross as it had been. He’d panicked, and while he knew it was better to panic in front of his old friends who understood  _ why _ he’d panic from the sensation of just having to barf, he was no less ashamed of it. Of the fact that Richie had to sit through that with him and calm him down in the first place. And Eddie’d probably been some kind of asshole during, belligerent, judging by the look on Richie’s face as Eddie headed out Stan’s door to head back toward New York that next morning. 

Eddie did remember, with embarrassing clarity, his weird sense of possessiveness over Richie’s attention. Non stop, all night, intruding on his conversations, side comments, having to get his word in. He’d been obnoxious. Richie hadn’t seen his friends in just as long, and in fact had less time with them having arrived late, and Eddie was there regardless, relentless, pulling his focus back to him. There was a frankly frightening sensation of him slipping between his fingers, of Richie being something he had to cling to with a new sort of desperation, that had fueled it. And Eddie couldn’t track it. 

He sighed. He’d thought he’d gotten over that bratty little habit. He was as grown ass a man as a 21 year old could be, and he was still hanging onto playground behavior when it came to Richie. 

_ Get a grip, man. _

“Eddie, dear, your lima beans.” 

Eddie picked his head up, feeling the color slip from his face momentarily as he locked eyes with his mother, her fork poised daintily, gesturing at the untouched side of his plate. 

“You’re not eating, are you feeling alright? They’re going to get cold.” 

Right, the beans.  _ Letting your food get cold gives time for bacteria to creep onto it unnoticed _ , his brain recited. Probably wasn’t even true. Eddie shoved a forkful into his mouth regardless, shaking his head. All clear there. “No, Ma, I’m alright. Tired from the drive.” 

His mother’s apartment in Queens was no more than thirty minutes from Eddie’s school apartment, even with traffic. He wished it was a longer drive. He wished it had taken him longer to find parking. That drive, brief as it was, was when he’d finally got to thinking, when his brain persisted that something went wrong at that party that he couldn’t recall and that he was too embarrassed and afraid to ask about. In his last moments of freedom in the car on the way to Sonia Kaspbrak’s humble abode, like a dying man, his brain had exploded  _ thought _ onto the inside of his skull.  _ Thought _ which was clearly still bothering him through a tense dinner. No time to shrug it off and collect himself.

There had only been a week and a half of classes left when Eddie returned from Stanley’s party, clutching Beverly’s invite like a life raft on the edge of having to go home for Christmas and all it entailed, and Eddie moved through that time as if in a dream.

He got to class on time, work on time, ate bland food, slept fairly regular hours, studied. 

Studied with Myra. For classes he didn’t even have with her, in fact. While Eddie wasn’t sure  _ why _ , he was sure that he sometimes felt a little overly nervous before arriving or after leaving these little study sessions. And that’s all they were, he had to insist several times to an overly curious Julie, who bugged him about it in that week and a half more times than he could count.  _ You’re jittery because you  _ like _ her. _ Nervous was just the best thing he could describe it as, it was an odd feeling. A pressure. Between that, Nancy pestering him about whether he’d bring Richie around some other time, finals, his mother, and Myra herself, Eddie had wondered if that little thirty minute drive to Queens would be a relief. 

But nothing truly ever was, was it? Not for Eddie Kaspbrak. Once back from Stan’s, he’d desperately considered not going home at all, considered staying alone in his apartment and celebrating a quiet and personal Christmas while Jeff and Greg were at their respective homes. Getting himself wine, watching _ It’s a Wonderful Life _ on the TV in the living room wearing only boxers and a sweater and socks, comforter with him on the couch, maybe taking a bath later that night. Sad when a lonely fantasy was such a desirable one, but after having come home to a deluge of questions and general fussings from Sonia, he only longed for that more and more and more. Instead, he was doomed to spend the next few weeks with his mother, only able to return to school under the excuse of classes starting again, no earlier. Eddie knew anything otherwise would break her heart. What harm was a few weeks out of the year spent at home? Christmas with Mom and the aunts (and his stubbornly surviving grandmother on his father’s side, who, unbearably in both terms, did not like Sonia in the least and never ceased commenting on how strong a resemblance Eddie bore to her little Frankie, which Eddie never really saw, even in the pictures of his father at his age, which made him a little sad despite himself), New Years with the neighbors, back to class a week later. 

Back to Jeff and Greg, Julie, and back to Myra.

That idea too, he noticed with a little pang, also didn’t satisfy whatever he was longing for. Maybe he was just chronically lonely, he wondered, maybe the little shadow that seemed to chase him around and nip at his ankles was one that survived no matter who he was around. 

Sure as hell felt like it, faced with his mother’s never ending worried looks and his lima beans. He kind of hated lima beans, he marveled, stuffing another forkful into his mouth. Wasn’t he old enough to say no thanks, actually, Ma, I think I’ll stick with just the chicken, I’m not really big on the lima beans? He probably was, that was probably a thing a grown ass 21 year old boyman could say to his mom. 

But he didn’t. 

Sonia wasn’t quite getting  _ old _ , per say, but among his friends’ parents, she was one of the older ones. (Oh, how she used to comment on how infuriatingly young the Toziers were, how irresponsible it had been of them to get married and have their little demon child at the age they did.) Eddie had been told once by one of his aunts that Sonia and his father had had a few hiccups when it came to childbearing, so Eddie came a little later in the game than expected. Sonia was certainly getting  _ older _ , but not  _ old _ enough for any serious concern of her living alone. Eddie mostly worried about her not getting out of the house, of having no one to talk to when he wasn’t around. It had been the two of them for a very long time, just the two of them, Sonia having never remarried or even dated (somewhat to Eddie’s relief), and he did worry now and then. He worried now and then and felt guilty nearly all of the time, guilty every time he shoved an unread letter into his drawer, refusing to read it out of any number of excuses. What else did she have to do besides cook and clean for herself and write to her son anyway? Eddie was busy up to his neck with school most of the time, but she probably couldn’t help being bored. It wasn’t her fault. 

He finished his lima beans. Eddie took a breath to try and clear his cluttered head, taking a sip of milk. Did people really even drink milk with dinner anymore? Wasn’t too much dairy technically bad for you? Weren’t there calcium supplements you could take if you were all that concerned about your bone strength, which was much more a concern for post-menopausal women than for 21 year guys? 

These were some of the many questions Eddie never asked. Wasn’t worth the strife. Drink your milk and eat your beans. Might not make you any healthier or more immune to whatever illness, but it would keep Ma happy, and the risk of fucking that up was more harrowing than “catching” cancer. Maybe not AIDS, but cancer, certainly.

Eddie quietly offered to do the dishes and was quickly shot down. Sonia believed that was Mother’s job and sent Eddie off to bed. And Eddie went. He showered, hardly feeling the heat of the water on his back, noticing when it went cold much too soon. He made a note to see if he could get into the basement of their building and check out the water heater. It would give him something to do, make him feel useful. 

Eddie did not go off to college feeling remotely close to useful. He’d had to have a neighbor teach him to drive, as his mother refused and hadn’t been driving for a while at that point, he had not a clue as to how to do laundry and ruined a few different batches of clothes, couldn’t run a dishwasher, had no earthly idea what cleaning products were supposed to be used to clean what surfaces and parts of the house, was baffled by a vacuum, a wreck when it came to cooking, and dear god, his first few grocery trips had been an absolute mess. He’d had to make maybe five trips, forgetting something he needed and having to slump back to the local market, forced to check out with the same cashier over and over again with increasingly important items. 

Perhaps this was the source of his defensiveness on his tire-changing abilities. 

Eddie toweled himself off, brushed his teeth, washed his face, and headed to his bedroom, pausing in the door frame. He’d been up there briefly before dinner to throw his bag onto his bed, but the sight of his room always gave him pause. It was set up almost exactly like his childhood bedroom, despite being half as big as his room in Maine. He’d wanted to decorate it himself for once, but he’d fairly quickly headed off to college once they’d moved in and had left Sonia to her devices. Which meant a coming home replica of his room as it had been when he was 12. It was quite difficult to feel like an autonomous adult at home. 

Wondering why the hell he was even getting in bed this early, Eddie resigned himself to finally crossing that threshold and pulling on his sweats and a hoodie from school. He was sure there was some dorky pajama set stuffed in one the dresser drawers, and he didn’t want to touch it. He left the door open a crack out of habit and settled in with a book, not taking in a single word on the page.

He wanted to call Bill. He knew he and Richie had just gone on a trip together that past weekend. He wanted to know how it went. He wanted to talk to Bill. He wanted to see if Richie was still there. He wanted to get Richie on the phone and ask him how was Bill. Eddie thunked his head back against his headboard a little hard, wincing, letting his book fall open on his lap. When he woke up, he’d have five days until Christmas. From there, a week before New Year’s, another week, and back to class. He’d survive. 

The real point he was waiting for was March, was seeing Beverly and everyone again, but that was too far away to get excited about just yet. He had to focus on getting through this break. Getting through the first term of next semester. Trying not to live only for the moments he could see the rest of the Losers. No matter how badly he wanted to.

Eddie fell into an oddly comfortable sleep that first night home, sinking deeply into the comfort of his old bed and old habits. 

Days proceeded normally, marching steadily toward Christmas. Eddie picked up groceries for his mom, sneaking in a little wine for himself, sat with her and watched her game shows, went up early at night to read and thought about calling any number of his friends, never quite making it back downstairs to the phone. It made him feel too scattered, he always thought about how many hundreds of miles his voice had to travel to get to any of them, of how ungodly far away Ben and Bev and Mike were. He felt a twist in his stomach when he realized Richie must have headed back across the country by now, he must be home for Christmas, must be a thousand miles away by now. And for who knew how long. Despite the fact that they hadn’t visited each other as much as he’d have liked while Richie was in Boston, there was a comfort that he was  _ there _ . He was in Boston. While Eddie hadn’t taken the opportunity nearly enough, it had been possible to go see him. They were close if they needed each other. 

This weighed a little too heavily on his mind come Christmas Eve. Eddie had gone up to bed early, sitting with the bottle of wine he’d stashed under his bed, staring at his measly collection of found license plates on the wall above his closet. Richie much too far away, indefinitely. He had no plan after dropping out, and Eddie felt sick thinking of him stuck in Missouri for the rest of his days. God forbid, taking up the family business. A sense of horror struck him at the idea of Richie Tozier fiddling around with people’s teeth for the rest of his life, greying and balding from stress, miserable, unfulfilled. 

Eddie knew it wasn’t his job to fret over Richie’s future, but God, did he despise how disappointed in himself he’d seemed about the moving back home ordeal. And Eddie, he realized too late, hadn’t helped him feel like much less of a failure. He wanted to call him, he wanted to reach a thousand miles away through the phone to the Tozier household, to say hi briefly to his always nice mom before she put Richie on the line, to tell him he really did believe things were gonna be okay for him and dropping out of college wasn’t the end. Tell him to come back East, that he didn’t have to be in school, he could get some job somewhere, but that he’d be miserable all alone way out there. Tell him Eddie was a little miserable with him out there already. He didn’t know if it was the impending drive to New Jersey in the morning and the family theatrics he’d have to put on all day, the lobster he’d inevitably have to try like he was a picky six year old who wouldn’t eat his brussels sprouts, but he sat in his bed, bottle of wine clutched to his chest, and fretted about Richie Tozier and his plans (or lack thereof) for the future. 

He’d worried desperately about losing Beverly when she moved so far away, worried about Bill forgetting his promise to call on weekends when he moved to Portland, about losing Stanley the first time he saw the for sale sign in his yard, about losing Ben all the way out in Nebraska which didn’t even feel like a real place, and that sweet little picture of himself and Mike at graduation had preceded a sobbing breakdown in the passenger seat of Mike’s car on the way home from commencement, terrified about Mike finally leaving him too, having recently received good news about his scholarship in Florida. 

He found a little comfort in the fact that he hadn’t lost any of them, not really, that despite all odds they still called, Beverly sometimes sent little letters and pictures and drawings, Stanley sometimes hosted those left on the East Coast and went all the way down to visit Mike, Richie showed up unannounced on Eddie’s doorstep. They’d survive it, even if Eddie didn’t want to even think about it. They’d survive Richie going back to his second hometown, even if Eddie had to make like Stan, buck up, and drive countless hours alone to go see him for a couple days at a time. And God, did Eddie hate long road trips. 

He clicked his light off, set down his still unread book, and laid on his side to stuff his wine back under his bed. There was some kind of hilarity surrounding hiding wine in this, his little boy’s room. He settled down in the covers, staring down the little crack of light that seeped in along the side of his door, still left open, just a hair. A refusal to break from what he knew. Each time he came home the crack narrowed, he gave himself a sliver more of privacy, but the day he’d close it completely felt distant, unreal. 

_ Someday _ , came the vague little thought. Comfort in ambiguity.  _ Someday one day. _

Richie having visited and subsequently moving away again forced him to realize how badly he needed them close. How much better he felt when he heard Ben was visiting Stanley, that more of them were even in the area, even if he didn’t get to see any of them. He would have called it strength in numbers if he didn’t know any better. A sort of circle connected the seven of them, and while Eddie firmly believed those bonds were strong enough to span over vast distances, they felt so much weaker far away. He needed them close. 

He realized with a strange twinge in his stomach that he needed Richie close. Richie specifically. It felt like a loss, the wound felt so much deeper, having just had him for a little while. Having had him as close as the couch in the living room. Eddie felt his face warm, pressing it into the pillow. He’d maybe gotten him a little too close, and was still refusing to acknowledge feelings about that. The man was his best friend. He didn’t care to think too often in those terms, as he had six other best friends that it felt unfair to, but there was something about Richie Tozier, loathe as Eddie was to admit it. He felt safe around any one of them, but Richie challenged him in a way none of the others did. And Eddie craved it, he could maybe admit that much to himself. 

He challenged him, he danced with him. Eddie grinned stupidly at that though, drifting close to sleep thinking about pitching himself about like a fool among his favorite people in the world. Thinking about the light in Ben’s eyes, the joy all over Mike’s face. Beverly having fun, Stanley shouting ecstatically. Richie, right there, Richie close. Richie who’d gotten taller every year Eddie knew him, Richie whose glasses only magnified the glint in those blue eyes of his. He’d really started to grow into himself, straying further and further from the dorky little kid with the bruised up knees Eddie knew and loved in middle school, if only in appearance. The dark scruff that was coming easier to his jaw, the straight white teeth, the inherent masculinity that came with him filling into the breadth of his shoulders. Eddie figured his feelings about that could only be jealousy, the light feeling in his stomach thinking about these things was him wishing he’d gotten that tall, wishing he had to shave every day to keep from getting a shadow, wishing he had such god awful big hands. 

Eddie sighed, bunching up his comforter to hold it tightly against his chest like he used to as a kid. It was strange how somehow the right amount of pressure on his chest was a comfort rather than something that sent him into a panic. He rested his chin on top of it, tired mind wandering. Richie really was still oddly gentle, oddly hesitant, awkward in his own madly charming sort of way, despite the way he kept growing as if he wasn’t quite finished yet. He’d caught Eddie by the waist when they were dancing, that Eddie remembered with utmost clarity, the span of his fingers which could maybe almost meet at the small of his back, the feather light pressure of his thumbs against the studs of Eddie’s jeans at the pockets, so lightly pressing the denim into his hip bones. Eddie swallowed, throat dry. 

Richie, close.

_ Having sexual feelings for our friend, are we, Eddie? _

Eddie’s heavy eyelids snapped open, head picking up a few inches from the pillow. It sounded almost as if someone had said it aloud, as if someone had physically called him out in the almost-sanctuary of his room. Breath picking up, Eddie eyed the crack in the door, searching frantically for the shadows of his mother which weren’t there. 

A little more shaken than he would have liked, thoughts spiraling and brain now fully awake, Eddie attempted to shake it off, flipping over to face the wall. It had sounded like a voice, it was definitely someone else’s voice in his head, which he knew was all subconscious and nothing more powerful than that, but that nasally condescending voice sounded frightfully familiar, sounded like someone he wanted to trust but couldn’t bring himself to as a child.

Now wide awake, Eddie couldn’t let it go. It dawned on him slowly, holding him awake for hours afterward, feeling vaguely nauseous and like he wanted to curl himself up so tightly into a ball he simply popped out of existence entirely. 

It had sounded like Mr. Keene.

“Someone stayed up a little too late last night.” 

“Too excited to sleep, Eddie?” 

Eddie picked his head up from where it rested in his hand, attention snapping to his aunts sitting beside the fireplace. “Oh,” he said, thinking fast. “Yeah, I was up reading for a while.” 

He hadn’t slept a wink. His mother had insisted they get up at the crack of dawn for the 45 minute drive to Upper Montclair, where Aunt Matilda and Aunt Sophia had taken up residence to keep close to him and his mother in New York. Eddie laid stiffly awake all night, brain circulating the same few bothersome thoughts, relentless, until he heard his mom’s alarm go off in the next room and craved death more deeply than he had nearly his entire life. 

“That’s our college boy, still hitting the books on his break.”

Matilda and Sophia did not have children. Eddie was a novelty item to them.

“Don’t let him work too hard, Sonia, we don’t want him burning out this early on.” 

Eddie was convinced neither of his aunts had any idea how long he’d been in college. Sonia rounded the corner from the kitchen, bringing with her a plate of cookies. Eddie reached for one and she moved it just out of range, his hand falling limply back onto the arm of the chair. His stupid red sweater was too big, too hot. 

“I keep telling him he shouldn’t be working while he’s in school,” Sonia said, settling deeply into the armchair next to him. “His job right now is being a student. But he won’t listen.” She looked over at him, green eyes settling a little too heavily onto him. “Probably saving up to leave his poor mother alone once he graduates.” 

Matilda and Sophia laughed good-naturedly, Eddie a little uncomfortably.

“Any girls, Eddie?” 

Eddie turned to look at Aunt Sophia, back stiffening slightly. His neck felt a little hot. 

“I’m sure the girls are all over him, he’s really grown up to be quite the looker.” 

“Gosh, I remember when you would run around with the neighbor’s girls in our neighborhood in Bangor when you were little, do you remember that? I told you he was going to be a heartbreaker from the start, didn’t I?”

“I’m sure he’s having no trouble breaking hearts, Matilda.”

Majorie had entered the room. She was a thin, somewhat grim looking woman, dark haired and dark eyed like Eddie’s father and himself. His mother always made a point to invite her mother-in-law, despite her mere presence making his aunts’ cats flee from any room she happened to occupy. “He looks just like his father did at that age.” 

So it began. Every eye in the room resisted a roll. 

Sonia reached over to pick at a loose thread on Eddie’s sleeve, which he sat perfectly still through. A few crumbs of sugar from her cookies caught in the fibers. “Oh, I’m sure he has no time for girls between that job and all that work, isn’t that right, Eddie?”

For the most part, Eddie could typically sit back and nod and smile through these conversations. Any questions directed toward him were usually picked up by his mother anyway, so there wasn’t often any risk of him having to speak. The problem came when addressed directly by his mother. An answer was expected, almost always a  _ yes, Mama. _

But the ghostly imaginary voice of Mr. Keene nagged at the back of Eddie’s head like it had all night, that mocking tone prompting him into something he knew he shouldn’t be even trying. 

He did anyway. 

He’d already hesitated a moment too long, which drew every eye in the room tightly to his face. He could feel his mother’s gaze burning into him, already baffled by the hesitation and the lack of yes, Mama-ing.

“Actually—” he laughed, just one little nervous release of breath, a hand immediately flying up to the back of his neck to soothe himself. It felt as if every occupied chair in the room inched slightly toward him, crowding him. He swallowed, tongue utterly dry, smiling sheepishly, guilty. “I mean she’s not,” he started, already losing confidence, “she was in one of my classes, but we aren’t—” 

“What’s her  _ name _ , Eddie?” 

“Myra,” he said, entirely automatic. He could have said any name, he could have made something up, could have used any girl’s name in the world save Beverly, but there it was. “She’s um, her family’s from upstate.” His voice puttered out at the end, growing quieter as each ear strained to listen.

“ _ Upstate _ ,” Aunt Sophia marveled, voice just a twinge too loud. “Look at that, Sonia, Eddie’s got himself a girl from  _ upstate _ .” 

“Oh, we’re not actually da—”

“I would hope not,” his mother said, not taking her eyes off him, fingers still light on his sleeve. “You’re too young to be fooling around with girls right now, dear, you have school to focus on. Why don’t we worry about all that when we graduate?” 

Eddie swallowed again, hating that his mind immediately went to the fact that he knew his mother carried a spare inhaler in her purse and he could ask for a puff at any given time. His chest wasn’t getting tight, he was just stressed. He was working on it. “Ma, it’s nothing serious. We just studied for finals—” 

Aunt Matilda whooped. “Lord, Sophia, isn’t that what you said about that William Baker when you were in high school? You two were  _ studying _ ?” 

Eddie was burning red down to his chest, mouth open, helpless as Aunt Sophia chirped in. 

“Oh, Lord, Sonia,” she laughed. “You’d better watch him with that  _ studying _ , he is a young man after all.” 

“ _ Stop _ it, you two,” Sonia demanded, clapping a paw on the top of Eddie’s knee so suddenly and forcefully he nearly jumped out of his skin. He would have liked to be shot then, put down, out of his misery like a racehorse with three broken legs.

“Why don’t we have dinner, it’s already four thirty, for Pete’s sake,” Majorie said, rising from her chair to head into the dining room. Endlessly grateful for the excuse to escape, Eddie made to get up, only feeling the hand on his knee tighten and hold him down for a second. He froze, but Sonia released him, getting up and following. He remained in his chair for a moment, slowing his breathing, when Aunt Sophia passed him with a little wink. 

Seriously, someone in this house had to own a gun.

Eddie ate with his head down, listening to his aunts and mother chattering like crows back and forth, his grandmother’s presence dark and silent at the head of the little table. 

Inevitably, Matilda insisted he try her lobster cakes, and Eddie took one, breaking it into little bits and sprinkling it on the floor discreetly for one of the skinny cats to pick up later. 

His mother sat across from him, her gaze locked on him almost the entire time. She scooped food onto her fork without looking, eating without tasting, glaring him down. It had been a mistake, Eddie realized all too late, a gigantic mistake to even start with any of that shit, to say anything beyond his usual  _ yes, Mama _ . 

But fuck, if it didn’t feel a little good. His sixteen year old self was cheering him on from the past, exhilarated by finally saying something even mildly upsetting. Something that challenged Sonia’s idea that if she wished and prayed and loved him enough, Eddie would never grow up. The mashed potatoes actually tasted exquisite, despite being flavored with nothing but unsalted butter. This was rebellion in its simplest form, and Eddie, despite dreading Sonia getting him alone in the car later that night, was going to ride the high all the way home.  _ Actually _ and  _ Myra _ were threats, threats and exposures. There was no reason for a mother not to be excited her little boy had made friends in college, had made a girl friend, save the overbearing mother. Sonia didn’t like that point being brought up, and if she argued it at all in front of her sisters and mother-in-law, it only proved her suffocation of her son. 

Felt good to get that out there. Felt good to have that armor. Felt great that since bringing her up, Myra had sufficiently silenced that nagging awful voice in the back of his mind, even if just for tonight. 

“There was no need to spring that on me in front of everyone.” Sonia started immediately, shaky voice filling the car the moment she closed the passenger side door. Eddie hadn’t even turned the key. 

Her old station wagon started up with a sputter, clear effort in turning over. Maybe Eddie would take a look at the engine when they got back. He was trying desperately to ride that wave of defiance, but just being alone for a moment in the dark car was starting to stomp it down. He sighed slowly. “I didn’t spring anything, Ma, there’s no news.”

“There’s no news,” she spat, incredulous. She shook her head, arms crossed tightly over her chest, and Eddie pulled out onto the street. She was silent for a few merciful moments, allowing doubt to creep into Eddie’s mind. “I don’t want you getting caught up with these college girls, Eddie, you can’t even imagine the trouble they could get you in. You don’t know what kind of backgrounds they come from. You have a good career in front of you, they’re looking to ride those coattails.” 

Eddie decided not to point out that his father had worked, his mother had stayed at home, and had relied on life insurance payments and family help for their money his whole life. “Myra’s fine, Ma, and I told you, and I’m not caught up with her.” He wasn’t. He wasn’t lying about that. But oh, maybe it was just a little fun to imagine he was. To imagine that he had this girlfriend at school, this secret his mother hadn’t known about and could only resent silently at home. Something he had that was only for him, something he didn’t have to share with her. “She’s nice.” 

“I’m sure they’re all nice, Eddie.” She sniffed, and Eddie’s arms tensed. “I just wish you wouldn’t hide things from me.” 

Oh no. Eddie felt his resolve crumbling. He let out a shaky breath, trying to filter out the trembling in his mother’s voice. The crying worked until it didn’t, but God, was she good at putting so much hurt into her tone. “I’m not— I didn’t.” 

He could feel her staring at him. He tried to focus on the road, tried to focus on finding the sign for the highway. A streetlight passed over them, yellow. The car smelled stale, vaguely minty. 

“I’m not hiding anything, I promise.” His stomach twisted.  _ Lying, Eddie. _

“That would kill me, Eddie Bear,” she sighed, seeming to have calmed. If she was ever really worked up to begin with. “You having some girlfriend you felt like you needed to hide from me. I still think you shouldn’t be dating like that this young, you have a lot more to focus on. And it takes a lot of maturity, you know, I’m not sure if you’re ready for that.” 

Eddie remained silent. His jaw had set, aching a little. He thought about their little stack of presents in the backseat. Aunt Matilda had gotten him a few polo shirts. His grandmother got him a nice book. He couldn’t remember the title. Aunt Sophia—

“I just worry, honey. You’re so kind hearted, those girls could take advantage of you.” 

“No one’s taking advantage of me.” 

“But you wouldn’t know that, would you?” 

No, no no no. Eddie could hear her working herself up again, a wetness coming to her voice. “Ma—”

“I’m afraid, Eddie, I don’t want some girl taking you away from me. I need you here, I wish you’d come home more often.” She sniffled this time. 

Eddie felt his chest growing tight. Really, this time, his lungs pressing in on themselves. His hands were white knuckled on the steering wheel. He refused to breathe too deeply, allowing no indication that something was wrong. 

“I begged you to commute to school, Eddie, I know the drive is inconvenient but I could use a little help around the house, I’m getting older.” A sniffle. “What happens when I need more help? When you graduate and—”

“Ma—” 

“I’m going to need you more the older I get, haven’t you thought about that?” 

She’d started to cry. Eddie’s head felt fuzzy, shoulders drawn taught like wire.

“You were such a sweet little boy, I couldn’t believe that with how much I worried about you you were always still worried about me. I knew I shouldn’t have let you live at school, I don’t like what college is starting to do to you, honey, I’m worried. I know you haven’t been reading my letters, and I know you’re busy, but Eddie, dear, you know we’re all each other has.” She’d reached the full point of crocodile tears now, digging up long buried guilt in Eddie’s gut like sinking a shovel into a mud bottom lake. 

He needed to breathe, he needed to get a grip. “There’s nothing—” his voice was weakening, which started to scare him. Jesus fucking Christ, not while he was driving, not in front of her. 

_ It’s not fucking asthma but God alfucking mighty what the fuck is it if I’m not faking it, oh, fuck, I’m not faking it— _

Sonia only prattled on as Eddie desperately followed the signs for the freeway, breath growing shorter and shorter. He was getting lightheaded, trying desperately to press on, trying to drown her warbling voice out with his thoughts but his thoughts were cantations of  _ can’t breathe, holy fucking shit, please pull the fuck over, fuck pull over, this is not going to end well if you don’t quit while you’re ahead, please just stop and take the fucking loss, dude, dipshit, come the fuck on, please _

Sonia was a fountain of pleading, of misery, of fear of loss of her dear baby boy and long recited monologues of fretting and worry and an outpouring of suffocating love, always coming back to love, I love you too much to let you go, to watch you get hurt, don’t you love me too? 

She screeched his name when he jerked the car to the wide shoulder and slammed on the breaks, shaking, wheezing, eyes firmly shut, throat feeling like it was closing to a pinhole. She seemed to notice what was happening only a second too late, now really crying, scrambling for her purse and wailing the whole way, only surrounding Eddie with more sound and seeming to suck more precious air out of the car. He sat back, stick straight against the cracked leather seat, struggling for any semblance of calm, finding none, finally feeling his fingers close mercifully around the plastic of his inhaler.

It took Eddie seconds to start breathing normally again. It took nearly fifteen minutes on the side of the road to convince Sonia not to call them a goddamn taxi, that he was fine to drive, that they needed to get the fuck home and go to sleep.

They did, eventually, they made it, Sonia still ranting the whole way but singing a different tune this time, an older one. One asking Eddie if he had a pharmacy close enough to school, if he had the emergency number for the nurse, if the school nurse even had emergency hours. An outpouring of pressing concern, of what she’d always called love.

Eddie managed to shake her off at the door and get up to his room alone, shutting the door fully for only a moment, something inside him coiled with an anger he couldn’t quite explain. He stood there for a full moment, heart hammering, before pulling it back. A crack. An inch. 

He could hear his mother crying in her room, soft, but not quite concealed, as he settled heavily onto his bed. He took off his clothes almost methodically. Shoes, socks, undershirt. Sweater. Belt. When he stood to shimmy out of his pants, he felt a weight in his pocket, forcing him to pause. Already knowing, he slipped his hand into his pocket, slowly pulling out the inhaler, glaring at it in the warm lamplight of his room. He stood there for a moment, holding it tightly in his hand, wondering if he just closed his fist and squeezed hard enough if he could crush the stupid thing, let the little canister burst in a puff of camphor and water against his palm. 

_ as needed _

Eddie jerked his nightstand drawer open and pitched the inhaler down inside, slamming the drawer shut. His lamp shook, the metal chain clicking against the stand, and he sat down on his bed, pressing his face into his hands, fingers gripping at the hair that spilled forward onto his forehead. 

Every time he got close.

  
  
  
  
  



	11. MIDWEST

**18 DECEMBER 1996**

**INTERSTATE 84 WESTBOUND**

Richie’s housing contract was up. 

He had had the conversation with his parents, yes, but that made the venture home no easier. Since his car had been recovered from the side of the road (another rocky conversation with Dad) and he’d managed to pack more and more of his belongings into his it each time he had to be up at school for the rest of the semester, gathering items from his side of the room here and there between arguments with financial aid and academic advising and the bursar. Eventually he couldn’t see out of his back window. His life was boxed up and crammed in the back of his wilting Ford Taurus. 

The final departure from Bill’s was the hardest. Richie had had to clean up his sterile white brick prision of a dorm between their impromptu Niagara Falls trip and staying there for one last weekend, but he was glad to be leaving from there and not Boston, even if it made the drive that much longer. He’d needed one last night to ground himself, and Bill provided him a few words of comfort and a familiar place to stay. Bill had hugged him for a moment longer than Richie had anticipated on the street outside his place, which had made him feel just a tad soft and weepy, but he held it together just long enough to squeeze himself into his cramped driver’s seat to start the journey home. 

All 1500 miles of it. 

His mom insisted he get a motel room halfway through in Ohio. Richie felt like he could make the 24 hour drive in one go (he’d made the 20 hour drive from Boston once), but Maggie wouldn’t have it. Wary as he was about another motel stay, those lingering feelings of unclear unease hanging around the back of his mind, he’d agreed to staying in a cheap Best Western and that had been that. 

The early hours of the drive were a little rough. Passing Boston a last time had felt bittersweet; it had been fun, but he knew it wasn’t his place. He passed several exits cheerfully pointing out exactly which way to New York City as he was leaving Connecticut, inspiring several lukewarm daydreams involving a quick trip down to the Big Apple. Phoning his parents from Eddie’s campus and telling them he was taking a quick pitstop. Helping Eddie pack up his car for Christmas back at his mom’s. Maybe stopping by their apartment in Queens and giving Mrs. K his own special brand of hell for a day or two until he was chased out with a broom. He’d give anything to see Eddie’s face then, halfway between embarrassed and charmed to hell. That image carried him like a weather balloon through New York state. Past all the exits on 84 West telling him he should at least drop by, even if it was a six hour detour. 

His mood steadily deflated the further west he drove, longing not long after leaving Scranton for the now long gone exit signs pointing to Eddie. He wondered whether he’d even left for home yet. He might have been able to excuse another more precious days before coming home. Cutting it close to Christmas, sure, but as long as he made it home for the main event. 

He’d only stopped by Eddie’s mom’s place once, a tidy little townhouse apartment in a tree lined neighborhood of Queens, all brick and urban green. It was an easy drive from Eddie’s campus, but Richie knew it was never an easy stay. He’d try both numbers when he got back to his parents’. Eddie’s campus number first. He didn’t need to be ringing the Kaspbrak kitchen only to have mother dearest pick up without Eddie to quickly cut in. 

Around the fourteen hour mark, he was finally throwing his exhausted car into park and dragging out his backpack from the passenger seat, now stuffed with additional empty McDonald’s bags and energy drink cans. He checked into the Best Western under his dad’s name, dropping his voice and squaring his shoulders in a way he knew was, if not believable, at least entertaining to himself. 

The detached looking 3AM desk attendant seemed to have other opinions regarding his performance. 

He slept alone in a double bed, laying on his back for much of it, staring at the ceiling. It felt good to simply be horizontal, to not have to actively focus on staying in one lane and not exceeding 20 miles over the speed limit, but he could hardly bring himself to sleep. Several thoughts weighed too heavily on his mind, a few keeping him glancing worriedly toward the door, paranoid without reason. He kept glancing at the harvest-gold phone perched on the nightstand under a particularly boring lamp, tapping his fingers on his thigh and running several different numbers through his head. Tonight was one he could stand being talked to sleep, but he was sure everyone he could call was far past that point.

Richie was pleased and surprised to find that his copy of _Labyrinth_ had made it into the one backpack he’d brought inside. His VHS player, however, was jammed somewhere in the car. He would have to brave a journey to the parking lot. He managed it in nothing but his coat, boxers, and sneakers, squishing the heels down rather than stuffing his bare feet all the way in. He didn’t bother to remove his coat as he laid down upon his return, unzipped and open on either side of him like wings. He balanced the player on bent knees, slipping on his headphones despite being alone in the room. 

Thankfully, the movie did the trick. Familiarity went a long way in lulling a crammed head to sleep. It wasn’t long before he was missing long stretches of dialogue, popping back in at random intervals when he opened eyes he hadn’t realized had even closed. He’d had to move the VHS player next to him to avoid being crushed at one point, neck bent funny to get a good look at the grainy screen. 

The more he drifted, the closer he was to Eddie’s lofted twin bed in his mind, the closer to Bill’s dank little room and mattress on the floor. But every time he so much as nodded, his brain reminded him of his glaring singularity in the creaky hotel bed. 

When he finally did sleep, he didn’t quite remember it, waking up to an alarm someone else had set on the bedside alarm clock. 

Who the hell got up at 10 on a Saturday? 

There was nothing else to do but stuff his player and headphones back into their case and start out again, eyes throbbing and feeling swollen. Not even bothering to search his bag for fresh clothes, he simply slipped back into the jeans and socks discarded on the floor the previous night. He splashed a little water on his face before departing, but didn’t dare look at his face. He could picture just how exhausted he looked in his mind’s eye, and that was rough enough without directly confronting reality.

There was another McDonald’s just before the entrance ramp back on to 70 West and a McMuffin in his hand as he careened back onto the highway. 

He often marveled at how exhausting just sitting in a car for hours at a time could be. It was sitting. You’d think it wouldn’t be that difficult. You’d be wrong. 

Richie was talking aloud to himself thirty minutes in, trying desperately to entertain himself with a jaunty conversation between John F. Kennedy and Colonel Sanders. Sanders needed a little work; Kennedy he was really getting down. This he carried on for a while. He broke briefly to half scream along to a Madonna song on a grainy radio station in Indianapolis, promptly forgetting where he’d been in the conversation. Sanders was upset about something, Kennedy had been sympathetic. Richie moved on, latching on to the radio and switching from local station to local station for the next hundred miles or so. He was, admittedly, growing a little tired of Smash Mouth once he was hitting Illinois. 

He really wanted to go visit Bev in Chicago on his own at some point. He figured, with a knot in his stomach, he’d sure as hell have the time now. Might need to buck up and save up for a new car first, but he wouldn’t have to work around an academic calendar. He could pop up any time he’d (and Beverly’d) like, crash on the floor in her dorm, smoke on the roof. He’d never been to Chicago, but he heard it was plenty goddamn windy. That was another nice image. Cupping Beverly’s lighter of the week with a gloved hand so she could light up. Wearing one of her beanies and shooting shit. Thrilled as he was to be there with all the guys in a few month’s time, Richie missed those little windows of time when it was him and Bev back home. 

Ben was also on his mind. That was another 6 hour drive or so, but man, he’d love to go visit good ol’ Haystack sometime. He realized halfway through _that_ pleasant image that he was trying desperately to comfort himself about leaving the Northeast again. 

Again. The word weighed heavily on him as he blinked to clear his eyes of the heavily setting in fog. The radio clock told him in its green melancholy that it was around 4:30. The sky was streaking premature sunset colors. He was starting to feel queasy and realized he hadn’t eaten anything since the McMuffin outside Cleveland. 

“Hey, look,” he said to himself, voice gruff. “The arch.” This statement was lacking it’s usual mock enthusiasm. St. Louis didn’t rush at him so much as meander. He’d learned from the first two holiday trips home that it took a glaringly long time to cross the Mississippi from the Illinois side, for some ungodly reason. The first view of the Gateway to the West set you up for some serious blue balls, especially on a trip as long as Richie’s. It was maybe 20 more minutes before St. Louis came into proper view, glowing double in the river as the sun started to sink more rapidly behind the skyline. 

He should have had Stanley come with him. He could have helped him pay for a plane ticket home. Stan was an incredibly cheery road trip companion; he’d made the venture down to Florida to visit Mikey for _fun,_ for fucks sake. Richie let out a hard breath through his nose, struggling to keep both a view of the road and an eye on the city. It was a good time of daynight to be passing through. The Budweiser eagle flapped its great neon wings at him and he nodded in response. 

His voice was getting tired, he noticed, struggling to keep up with Bowie as he blasted down through his last state. At least he’d made it back to Missouri in one piece. “Missouri,” he said, again, aloud, to himself. “ _Missouri_ ,” thickly accented. Misery. He passed an exit sign for I-240. “Two-Fardy.” Jesus. How the fuck did his parents decide to plunk him down in God forsaken _Missouri_ of all places? His dad was born in Boston, why the fuck had he even left in the first place? 

Jack in the Box this time. Four tacos and a large Sprite. Hit the spot for a while. 

He nearly missed the exit for highway AH. It wasn’t his exit: far from it. AH marked about two hours to go, but it was a long-honored personal tradition to scream just a little when he saw the first sign. It was usually just one short squak (as implied by the one H, it suggested brevity): energetic on the drive east, exhausted on the way back. This time Richie surprised himself this with a full on, jaw dropped, eyes closed scream. It filled the car for a moment, drowning out the static as the radio lost signal again, blocking out all sound and vision for a full few seconds before it cut off with a sharp inhale. 

Ouch. He cleared his throat and winced, finding it dry and sore. He scrabbled for his Sprite only to find it empty. Fantastic. He was going to be rushing inside to try and rock a piss without catching a side glance from a trucker at the next Flying J, wasn’t he? He needed to put five more bucks in to get him home anyway. 

Richie was glad when the sun set that he didn’t have to see one more possum smeared like jelly over hot toast. He was getting that overly-exhausted sort of emotional, and had wondered near tearfully if the last armadillo had had a nice little armadillo family with an empty spot at the armadillo dinner table. 

“We are gathered here today to celebrate the life and, ultimately, untimely demise of Arty- Army? Atticus,” he started, stuck on wondering what the poor bastard’s name would be, cutting himself off without finishing. It was not the time for imaginary armadillo funerals.

Uranus and all it’s fudge-packing joke billboards whizzed by. It’s charm, if it had any to begin with, had worn off immediately the second time Richie drove home from school. He didn’t remember seeing it the first time he’d passed it at fourteen; he’d been car-sicker than he’d ever been in his life. That was the only road trip he’d lost his lunch on, too. It felt like purging himself of something ugly. His mother, who had chosen to sit with him in the backseat for the last leg of the trip so he could lay his sweaty heavy head in her lap, had theorized that he’d gotten food poisoning at the diner they’d stopped by the night before. Richie knew there was nothing wrong with those chicken fingers. 

He was shivering by the time the Willard exit finally reared its ugly head. He swore aloud several times as he banked off the highway, head pounding. His heater was being finicky, the car cooling rapidly under the chilly starlight, but he didn’t dare put on his coat. He hated wearing a coat while he drove. Instead, he bore with it, thinking fondly, for the first time in a long time, of his warm bedroom with his Star Wars comforter and poster plastered walls. 

Once off the freeway and onto the farm roads (the roads here were quite literally named “Farm Road” followed by a number, it was maddening), he let his front windows down as if to cool himself off. He was far from hot, closer to shaking cold, but it was refreshing somehow. He thought to stick his head out like a dog when he almost banked off the narrow road, two pinpricks of light stopped him in his tracks. 

The doe wasn’t even on the road, but boy howdy, was she getting ready to cross. None too patiently. Richie’s car screeched as he made to stop; he was still rolling when she strode out in front of him. She stopped, contemplative, as if familiar with the song still blaring through Richie’s radio but unable to remember the full name. Richie felt oddly naked under her distant gaze, her fur glossy in his high beams. 

“Cmon, girl. I’ve got people to see,” he said, hardly recognizing his own voice. It was hushed and lacking all conviction. Part of him wanted her to stay there, locked in the moment, examining him like a scientist might a pinned butterfly. 

It was over in a moment and the doe glanced away, continuing her graceful little strut into the tall grass at the side of the road. 

Richie followed her for a moment with his eyes, his previous unease settling for only a moment before he noticed maybe half a dozen other pairs of golden eyes shining at him from off to his left. He yelped in a way much unlike himself and jammed the gas pedal down, rocketing off down Farm Road One-Oh-Something-or-Other. 

He laughed maybe two minutes later, sounding only a little crazy and delirious as he pressed a hand to his forehead to check for a fever. Scared by a gaggle of does. Richie didn’t know one thing more harmless he could have come across. The heater had kicked back on, window rolled up, but there was still a lingering chill in the air. 

His car sighed with utmost relief the moment he pulled up to the curb, all his muscles straining and eager to stand up and walk and finally collapse into bed. But he sat in the car for a moment, engine idling, staring at the glow of the little house. He could tell the kitchen lights were on by the light they cast in the garden out back. He could picture his parents in the living room library, cups of tea in hand, his mom fretting over whether or not he was making his ETA. He couldn’t remember what he’d said, but he was sure he was a little late.

The car rumbled under him, idling against the curb outside the house. The heater puttered out again. After such a miserably long drive, he’d figured all he’d want would be to drag his sorry ass out of the car and get into bed, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. Richie set his forehead on the steering wheel between his hands, closing his eyes. His glasses inched down his nose. 

It felt like being back at square one. He had, quite literally, given it the good ol’ college try, and things hadn’t worked out. Since deciding to drop out, since making the first call to cancel the first contract, Richie had been avoiding the reality of it sinking in. Going inside now meant it was over, meant he’d done his damndest and it hadn’t been enough, meant college hadn’t worked out. And that felt like admitting defeat. It hadn’t felt that way signing all the papers, getting his housing deposit back, missing the deadline for registration in the fall; it felt like that now. Faced with the seemingly insurmountable task of cutting the ignition, turning his lights off, unbuckling, stepping out of the car, swinging his backpack over one shoulder, and punching in the garage code. The garage where he knew piles of his things would live for an indeterminable amount of time, settled in with his childhood bike and long forgotten hobbies. Maybe he was adding college to that list now, adding the one thing he was pretty damn sure he’d be able to accomplish to the list of futile, forgotten hobbies. He’d always been worried about what the fuck he was supposed to do when school was over, when he graduated and the thing he knew he was good at was no longer a viable option to suck up all his time, but he’d never imagined cutting it short. He’d nightmare-imagined graduating into some dead-end job plenty of times, but this one had kind of come out of left field. 

Eventually, Richie picked his head up, heavy with the weight of reality settling in, and stared at the orange square cast from the kitchen window in the backyard. He didn’t want to go inside because he had no idea how long he’d be staying. 

The dog across the street barked when he finally bucked up and slid out of his seat and onto the street, her chain link fence rattling as she jumped against it. On any usual occasion, Richie would run over and say hi, but she’d have to wait. A pit in his stomach, Richie gathered enough things to hold him over for the night and locked up his car, Coco’s barking ringing in his ears in the otherwise still air of the night. 

He was home. 

Eleanor beeped immediately when Richie set foot in the kitchen. 

She was a round little thing, an aging calico, standing on her tense white feet on the tile, back arched slightly, eyes saucers. Richie was seemingly a stranger to her for a moment, and she sounded the alarm again before he crouched on his heels and held out his hand. At that point, the old girl seemed to remember he was the third usual occupant of the house and deemed him worthy of a bump of her head against his palm before she skittered off, frightened by footsteps from the living room. 

Nerves rising in the back of his throat, Richie straightened up in time to see his mother appear around the corner, still wild still red hair held back with a bandana, glasses perched on top of her head. She set a wine glass down on the island in favor of throwing her arms around him, catching Richie a little by surprise.

“Wow, so I seemingly haven’t been disowned due to severe academic disappointment?” It felt heart wrenchingly good to squeeze her back, despite the odd feeling of having outgrown someone who loomed so large your entire life. Under any other circumstances, Richie would have been nothing short of overjoyed to see his parents for a couple weeks, but he couldn’t help the lingering sticky feeling of being in trouble.

“Don’t speak too soon,” she joked into his shoulder, stepping back and holding him by the biceps to look him over. She cupped his face briefly, now having to reach up considerably. “Jesus, honey, you look like you had a rough ride. Was the car okay on the way back?”

“We made it,” Richie admitted, deciding to address the heater issue at a later date. It wasn’t dire. Dire was brushing his teeth and getting into bed, despite it only being 8. He could crash right there in the kitchen, but he felt oddly as if he should make himself scarce. Not once had his father ever raised his voice at him in anger, but he was petrified of that rare, cool look of disappointment he’d only seen a handful of times on Wentworth Tozier’s face. He should have figured he was overdue. 

“Do you want your dad to help you bring your stuff in tonight?” Maggie asked, smoothing down the front of his jacket for him. 

Richie thought hurriedly about the absolute state of wreck his car was currently in and thought better of it. “No, that’s okay, I can— get everything tomorrow.” He’d nearly mentioned unpacking, which would only solidify the fact that he was, for the foreseeable future, actually moving back in with his parents. He wasn’t sure how touchy that subject was around here, but it was reassuring that they were at least glad he didn’t die in a fiery wreck on the way back home.

His back stiffened up as his dad rounded the corner as well, a glass of red wine in hand. Richie had gotten comments his whole life in regards to the resemblance he bore to his father, and that had held true until he was about 18 and had started passing him in height, starting to lean a little harder toward his mom’s side of the family. Went had the same eyes, the same jawline, but looked a little sharper, a neater rendition of Richie from a different time. He was still dressed for work, clean white and khaki, gold rimmed glasses, though lacking the typical somewhat gaudy tie.

“Well if this isn’t the biggest thing Eleanor’s dragged in in days,” he said, looking Richie over for a moment longer before coming in for a strong one armed hug and a good thump on the back. “You look good, kiddo.” 

Richie didn’t feel great, but fuck, the warm welcome helped. It felt weirder still to be forced to realize he was even an inch or two taller than his father, but he could stand not to care for just a second. No one had brought up school, it seemed he was going to be allowed to slip off to bed unbothered tonight, which was a massive relief. 

“So how’s our straight A student?” 

Richie paled incrementally, his dad stepping back to reveal a well meaning smile, falling quickly when he caught the look on Richie’s face. Maggie muttered his name scoldingly, and Went cast her an apologetic glance before sending one to Richie as well. “Was that too soon?”

“I think we can save it for tomorrow,” his mom, his hero, said. “Richie, why don’t you go put your stuff down and I’ll heat up some leftovers so you can get some sleep in.” 

Went looked a little awkward as he patted Richie on the shoulder. “We’ll allow you one night of peace, that does seem fair.” 

“Much obliged, dad, thanks.” 

  
  


Maggie Tozier’s chilli was enough to lull any insomniac into a coma-like sleep, but Richie still felt a little cold after wolfing down a reheated bowl in his bedroom, left alone in the quiet of his old things. Richie had done his damnedest to cover the frankly repulsive original brown and yellow vertical striped wallpaper throughout the years of living there, and had just about done it in. It had started with repurposed VHS covers (rather unwisely) stapled to the wall across from his bed, which made the stripped collection of cases on his bookshelf (also housing a small TV and NES) much harder to navigate, but had pleased him greatly in 8th grade and still made him a little proud to look at. He’d quickly graduated to real posters in high school, (starting with a Chuck Berry poster he’d discovered in a broken frame at a flea market) which took up more room and held just a little more intrigue, soon adding smaller additions of ticket stubs and duct taped photos which merged with the nicknacks on the hutch on top of his desk, cluttered organized in Richie’s own special little way. The walls were a riot of colors, a flag or two strung across his ceiling over the doors, mixed rainbow and white Christmas lights decking out the corner above his bed. A dusty amp sat heavily next to his currently empty guitar stand, never used, having never quite graduated to an electric. His acoustic was still in his car, which he figured he should just go get now. Something to do to calm his brain enough to get to sleep. 

He’d just started to get up when his dad appeared at his door frame, making him pause as he slid his empty chilli bowl onto the worn-ragged surface of his desk. 

“You holding up alright?” 

He used to look so massive against the doorframe, but Richie was always jarred to realize Went really wasn’t all that tall. His dad was really only about Stanley’s height, build a lot narrower than Richie’s had turned out to be. His father was all clean lines; Richie often felt like a crudely rendered drawing of a man. He slumped his shoulders forward a little bit, blinking at him. “Yeah, I’m alright.” Richie pushed his glasses up. “Why?” 

Went took a breath. “To put it lightly, this whole thing is kind of a bummer.” 

He had that right. Richie dropped his gaze, sighing. So much for one night of peace. “I know, and I’m not gonna just sit around here doing nothing, I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.” Not only did he already feel like a deadbeat, he’d go crazy if he hung around too long. 

“You can take your time, Rich, we’re not kicking you out as soon as you’ve landed.” 

Richie looked back up at him, sensing he had more to say. He was glad he was too tired to ramble on and interrupt his dad. This felt semi-important. 

Went went on. “I just wanna make sure you’re not gonna get depressed being back here, we both know this whole thing isn’t exactly ideal.” 

A fresh pang of guilt struck him at that, and Richie shook his head. “I’ll be alright, I’ll figure something out.” 

“Well don’t be a stranger, man, your mom and I have a lot of experience in the ‘figuring something out’ business, you may be surprised to know we might be able to advise you.”

“I knew it was a shotgun wedding.” 

Went grinned, snorting. “Okay, I changed my mind, get back in the fucking car.” 

Richie laughed, feeling the pressure in the room ease off a little as his dad smiled, pointing toward the kitchen. “What happened to not kicking me out so soon?” 

“You can stay in my house, but you can’t be a little perv about it,” he said, leaning his shoulder back into the doorframe. “Have you thought about where you’re gonna work?” 

Not one night? Not one. Jesus. “Yeah, I think there’s a good chance the donut shop will take me back.” 

Richie had cringed at the thought initially. No one wanted to move home in the middle of college, let alone go back to their high school job. There was a high chance of running into some familiar (if not very friendly) faces while at work, but it was all he could think of without starting over and having to actually work out a sad little resume. It wouldn’t be impressive. 

“That does sound like an appropriate job for a 20 year old living with his parents with only a high school diploma to his name.” 

Richie crinkled his nose. “Don’t be elitist.”

“I’m not being elitist, I’m being honest.” 

“You’re not a real doctor, you know.” 

“Between the two of us, who has the doctorate?” Went raised his eyebrows, accepting Richie’s silence. “Go to bed, twerp.” 

“It’s like 8:30.” 

“And you look like a zombie.” He made to flick the light switch off, realizing that Richie’s room was already lit by lights plugged into the wall. “I hate those things, how am I supposed to dismissively turn the lights off on you when I want you to go to sleep?” 

“I think that’s part of the trouble of having an adult child under your roof, dad.”

“I always told your mother we should have just gotten a dog.” 

Richie was relieved to find out that his parents had waited for him to get home to decorate the Christmas tree, a time honored tradition which included a Mimosa for the whole family (Richie’s steadily becoming less and less orange juice as he got older) in the morning and an afternoon of trying to keep Eleanor from eating the tinsel on the low hanging branches. Christmas came and went peacefully, allowing Richie several days to settle down and feel a little less like shit about his whole situation, but reality rushed back in almost immediately as soon as the holiday was over. 

The local donut shop still had the same manager (a squat, 40 year old ex-military man whose excitement about donuts was as delightful for the customers as it was mildly uncomfortable for the employees), and while it took him a moment to recognize Richie as the scrawny, dorky, sufficiently bullied 17 year old he’d been when he quit, Richie was, in fact, offered his job back. 

His first week immediately proved his dad’s fear of him getting madly depressed to be nothing if not valid. Putting that ball cap and polo shirt back on after three years really felt like a huge L in the grand scheme of things, and he fell back way too easily into the routine of his soulless day job. The most glaring difference was now the fact that Richie now had coworkers younger than himself, a cluster of teenagers currently going to the same high school he had narrowly escaped with his life from. Sadder still was the older crowd, a group of thirty-somethings and early forty-somethings, many of whom Richie recognized not only from having worked there before leaving for college, but all the way back to coming in on Sunday mornings with his mom after church when they had first moved there. It was hard not to see himself falling victim to the same fate, lugging bags of flour up and down the stairs to the cellar, scrubbing crusted icing off the gaggle of tables in the lobby, chasing the occasional rat out of the kitchen with a broom until he was gray. 

There had been a few regular customers who had recognized him, cheerfully wishing him luck with school and telling him they hoped he’d enjoyed his break at home, which Richie rather sadly pretended was true. This was the only high point in what was turning out to be a series of lows. Namely, the group of what used to be middle school boys who used to crack up at his over-the-counter jokes who came in one afternoon, now driving themselves and smoking, one of them pointing out rather rudely 

_“You’re still here?”_

Clearly, Richie had lost some of his charm over the years. It was all he could do to keep from spitting in the little fucker’s coffee. 

Richie really thought things couldn’t get worse. And then Kate Foster had walked in. 

Kate Foster was arguably one of the better people from Richie’s high school that he could see when he was trapped on the clock, although the awkward facts of her having taken his virginity the summer before he left for Boston and shortly before their (fairly mutual, fairly amicable) breakup was immediately at the forefront of his mind. 

That, and the fact that the uniform and the dead look in his eyes told a clear story that Boston hadn’t exactly worked out. She’d see that immediately.

Heart hammering, Richie pulled the bill of his hat down and ducked off to the side of the counter, hoping that by some chance she hadn’t come in here for donuts and by some grace of God would simply turn around and leave. Richie was alone at the counter, his only other coworker on this shift elbow deep in dough in the kitchen.

Despite all of Richie’s silent wishing and praying, Kate inevitably approached the counter. Richie put off facing her as long as possible, turning quite suddenly to face her when she spoke up. 

“Hi—”

“Hiya, hey, hi—, welcome uh—” he was going to end his shit after this “—hello.”

Kate stared for a moment, recognition dawning fondly on her face. Richie held back the thought that he might be sick. “Look who the fuck is home.” 

Richie wasn’t proud of it, but he wasn’t going to say no. 

He’d heard that some people got a kick out of a good old fashioned hometown hookup, but he had to admit that there was very little charm in screwing his high school girlfriend in the back of his barely functioning compact car on the side of a dimly lit farm road. He’d tried to comfort himself in the fact that it was ten times more awkward the first time they’d done it, but it didn’t help much given the fact that back then they’d had an actual bed and Richie wasn’t trying to coordinate all six foot two of himself in the back of a 86’ Taurus. Somehow took a little bit of the romance out of it. 

Admittedly, lately, he’d been running off some increasingly nervous energy, antsy and pent up and greatly needing something a little more intense than a cigarette to take a little edge off. And if he did like one thing about sex, it was the fact that he could still smoke afterwards. Best of both worlds. 

He was worried it would be a little more awkward, but once they’d gotten their pants back on and were situated more comfortably in the back seat, a pack of Marlboros between them, but the night just rested still and silent and a little uneventfully upon them. It felt a little too casual, sitting side by side smoking their own cigarettes rather than sharing one like they used to, but Richie was glad at least for where their shoulders leaned into each other. He might have started to feel a little skeeved out had they been sitting completely separate from each other. He was still buzzing, trying to push any sense of consequence that may come of this from his mind, when Kate finally spoke up, blowing smoke out the cracked window on her side, legs tucked up under her. 

“Guess now is as good a time as any to say it’s good to see you again.” 

Richie almost laughed, coughing to hold it down in his chest. “I’m flattered.” 

“How’s school been?” 

Richie wondered briefly if she hadn’t already figured it out. The question was sincere enough, and Kate had never really been someone to mock him, which had been a rarity when he last lived in Willard, so he figured it was innocent enough. He took a quick drag before responding, smoke falling out of his mouth. “That venture’s come to an untimely end, I’m afraid.” 

Kate was quiet for just long enough to worry him. Richie looked over to her, finding her examining the back of his passenger seat. 

He watched her for a moment longer before working up the guts to ask. “What?” 

“So you’re home for good?” 

Richie blinked, hoping that didn’t mean that made their little reunion session an issue. He spoke cautiously, watching her. “Until I figure something else out, yeah. Unfortunately.” 

Kate picked at a chipped fingernail, not looking at him, and Richie felt his stomach sink. A great time to feel like an idiot was always after the fact. Richie tore his gaze from her, trying to figure out if this meant he was going to have to put on a couple little emotional Band-Aids after this. No strings attached, more of a roll in the hay for nostalgia’s sake, but a few key factors could be tweaked to make this hurt. And Kate’s silence was stinging just a little. 

“I didn’t know that,” she finally said.

“Yeah.” His mouth felt dry. 

“I thought you were going back to Boston.” 

Richie cleared his throat. “Nope.” 

A thick cloud of awkwardness had started to build in the cramped little car, battling the cloud of cigarette smoke and leaving Richie scrambling to think of something to say that could possibly dispel it. Nothing was coming to mind. Maybe it was the air around here; something about being home made him feel like his personality had been squashed into a container much too small for it with no room to breathe. He wanted to say something, let her know he wasn’t expecting anything, this was more of a stupid coddling self-comfort move, he hadn’t wanted anything to come of it, when Kate solved that issue for him. 

“I gotta tell ya, Richie, I think I’m most definitely a lesbian.” 

Richie choked on his last puff, trying and failing not to make a scene. Spit caught in the back of his throat and made him slip briefly into hacking, pounding on his chest for a moment. The only benefit was saving him from saying anything immediately, the dramatics giving him just a moment to think. Not that his next question was all that well thought out. 

“Jesus Christ, Kate, then what the fuck are you doing sleeping with me? The first time was a stupid enough decision on your part, but this is making me greatly question your standards.” His head spun a little bit, grappling with this new and quite frankly very interesting fact. His senior year girlfriend, the woman who deflowered him and had now slept with him a second time three years later, was a lesbian. 

At least she chuckled. “I don’t know, Richie, I ask myself that question a lot.”

“Do you?” He hadn’t meant to sound desperate, but he was a little vulnerable here. 

“No, I definitely wanted to give it a shot back then.” She shrugged. “Not completely sure what got into me this time.” 

Richie shook his head, trying to wrap his brain around this. She’d chosen a really choice time to tell him that, considering he was a dude and she was a lesbian and what they’d just done was a little undeniably straight. He wasn’t quite getting the logic behind any of this. “I’m easily missed, I know,” he said, trying to bring a little levity. 

She gave him a light little elbow. Richie took a break to take another drag, spinning just a little. He figured something about this meant something, but he couldn’t place what. 

“I dunno, that was probably stupid,” she admitted. 

“I have to say, this is a record for how quickly someone has told me they regret sleeping with me. It usually takes a couple days of radio silence at least before I get a confession.”

“Stop it,” she said, pulling briefly on his earlobe. “The self hating humor was never cute.”

“It was a little cute.” 

“It’s definitely not now.” 

Richie sighed, reaching for the Coke can in his cup holder which served as his usual mobile ashtray, ashing his cigarette. He had questions, but was a little unsure as to what he could ask. It was not as if Kate was the first lesbian he’d ever spoken to on the subject. Far from it. But there were a few factors here that brought it a little close to home. He cleared his throat again. “Is this a recent revelation?”

“The lesbian thing?” 

“Yeah.” 

Richie wet his dry lips, watching as Kate stretched her legs out, boots wedging under the passenger seat. “If you’re asking me if having sex with you just now opened my eyes to the fact that I’m not attracted to men, then the answer is no.” She reached over to ash her cigarette in turn. “But would you be hurt if I told you that kinda drove the final nail into the coffin?” 

“I really wanna say no,” Richie said, snickering, because it was the only response his stupid brain could come up with at the moment, “but the way you put that is only a little hurtful.” 

“Take it as a compliment,” she said, tipping her head against the headrest to look at him. There was still a level of fondness in that glance, which helped Richie track this a little better. “I’m still somehow comfortable enough with you to give that one more go, and I figured if your dorky ass couldn’t rekindle some kind of flame in me, no one could.” 

That did feel a little better. It may have been, to date, the strangest compliment he’d ever received (and an older woman at church had once mentioned that he had such charming little ears), but Richie wasn’t going to knock it. He let out a breath, feeling some of the tension leak from his shoulders. “And I’ve clearly failed in turning you straight, huh?”

She grinned, looking down at her knees. “Are you disappointed?” 

“Not at all,” Richie said, truthfully.” He tipped his head to blow out his window. “Kinda makes things here a lot simpler, doesn’t it?” 

“You’re not upset?” 

“I don’t really have a reason to be,” he started, realizing that was true. “This was just— for me— I don’t really know.” He barked a laugh, heat returning to his cheeks. He nudged at a stain in the carpet with the toe of his powdered sugar covered sneaker. “You offered and my resolve is not the strongest right now.” 

“Ouch,” she said, wincing, and Richie laughed again. Kate leaned toward him an inch. “Do you wanna get into it?” 

Richie considered it. He sucked his teeth. There was kind of a lot to get into. 

Richie had been ping ponging back and forth between fretting endlessly over his sexuality and blatantly ignoring it since he was maybe twelve. Things had only escalated in high school, when he moved from one blatantly homophobic town to another, this one only bigger and filled with more bitterness per capita. Willard wasn’t as bad as Derry in many senses, but might have been a little worse on that front. Richie had immediately put defensive tactics into the works, which included switching out the brightly colored clothes he used to like for an army of unassuming Nirvana t-shirts and grungy flannels to blend in better, holding back any misplaced jokes, generally not being himself whenever he could avoid it. He’d learned quickly that himself was a little too flamboyant for that time and place, and he’d had to put a little more than his sexuality into a box and lock it away for a few years. Survival tactics. His panic had quieted for a while, having realized in 8th grade (and for a stint in high school) that he was actually quite interested in chasing skirts. He’d developed a number of fairly safe crushes on girls in his classes and had shifted comfortably into normalcy, outright ignoring any sense that there was something else going on. 

A lot of times he _could_ ignore it. He won kisses from girls at parties, had a date to sophomore homecoming, picked up a little mediocre guitar and wooed girls at bonfires plucking clumsily away at Oasis. 

Richie fared quite well being straight, until he didn’t. He was still getting stuffed into the occasional locker, still getting spat at in the hallways, on one unpleasant occasion having his head dunked into a toilet, glasses nearly sucked down with the flush, but it was because he was still a loudmouth wisecracking piece of shit. Not because he was gay. While he was never quite popular, while he wasn’t every really pursued actively by most girls, he could sleep easy at night knowing that when George Sallow called him a fag he had no real traction. No one could prove that, and there was enough evidence by then against it. 

Then there was the unfortunate slip up of kissing Cody Lancaster, who was decisively not a girl and which did not help the case that he was straight as straight could be. For a while he tried to believe that it was nothing more than a slip up. It had come as a glaring surprise, when after a school-coordinated bonfire near the football field in the last few days of summer before senior year, Cody Lancaster had offered to help him look for the car keys he’d dropped somewhere in the marshy dregs of the field, and Richie had found himself backed against a tree on the edge of the clearing with a track runner kissing him in a way that made his chest feel like it was going to burst. He’d excused it with the idea that Cody had just read a few signals wrong, that maybe Richie had slipped up and fallen back into a few old habits which used to make his middle school bullies believe him to be the fairy the so often taunted him about being and poor Cody had taken those signals a little too far, but it was hard to excuse the mutuality of it. Richie wanted to believe that Cody had instigated, had kissed him out of the clear blue, but he was lying to himself if he said he hadn’t been nervousexcitedthrilled jittery about walking around with him in the dark alone, hadn’t been flirting with him in a way that was safe when you were presumed straight with another presumed straight guy, hadn’t kissed back, hadn’t heard his pulse in his eardrums and something bursting with fresh energy and long held down clawing up his throat. 

Richie had later found his keys inches from the front left tire of his car, pathetically close to where he’d stepped out of the car when he’d first arrived for the bonfire. 

He’d started dating Kate later that year, which had eased off some of the terror that had come after the bonfire and lost keys and Cody Lancaster incident. Nothing had come of it, they’d never spoken of it, and Richie did his best to be normal and friendly when he passed him in the hallways, settling for strict normalcy. Cody seemed relatively unfazed by this, but Richie still wondered sometimes if he felt the same kind of unfazed Richie felt in the early hours of the morning alone in his room: unfazed, cool, yet wondering if Just Maybe. 

But Kate he’d genuinely liked. Kate had been in a physics class with him, she was smart and loud and had big wild hair and wore combat boots, which was just about the coolest thing Richie could think of at 17 in 1993. He and Kate had known each other for maybe a year and a half and Richie had nursed a crush on her for longer, finally having gotten the chance and confidence to ask her out leaving school after a test one afternoon. And again, his worries assuaged, he rode out senior year semi-satisfied, loving her without quite being in love. And that was alright for his age, that was normal. Truly falling in love could be reserved for Richie at a later date; he had enough on his plate then without all that mess. 

They’d agreed early on that they’d break up before Richie left for college, excited to be getting out of a small town for the first time in his life, and it had gone as well as it could. Richie still missed her sometimes his freshman year, but he was quickly caught up in school and new people and being close enough to finally visit Bill. She’d always be a lot of firsts for him, but it had become clear that their time in each other’s lives had just about come to a natural end. 

Richie wasn’t allowed to live out the comfort of having genuinely loved a girlfriend for long. Things had turned again shortly, as Richie had found himself the token straight guy and token freshman in a group of sophomores from Western Mass, until he wasn’t. Until he was giving in again and again to urges long suppressed and kissing more than just Cody Lancaster. For a while, in the beginning of college, it felt like no one cared. He didn’t have to say shit about whether he was straight or not, it felt like no one made assumptions, and after a number of ragers in upperclassman apartments he’d wake up some mornings in the girl’s dorm building, sometimes in the guy’s dorm across the street, and sometimes in his, the only coed building, although not in his own bed. 

Somehow, that had been fine. Explorative and non confrontational, screwing around. It was college and the people Richie cared about at school didn’t care. Boston was a safe sort of bubble for that thing, it was a place where Richie could feel out some things he’d never been allowed to without having to come to a solid conclusion one way or another. The panic went away for the first time, and Richie felt fairly comfortable with himself whether he was dancing with Natalie Pinkman or Scott Fernsby at any given house party. 

Then had come seeing the other Losers, friends who had no inkling about the sort of debauchery Richie had been getting up to under his safety net in Boston. Then had come staying with Eddie. Then had come moving home.

Things had suddenly complicated again. 

“Not really,” he said, glancing again to Kate, still cool with her big hair and personality. “Shit happens.” 

He and Kate had quite easily agreed that they wouldn’t be sleeping together again any time soon. He dropped her back at her place and dragged himself home hours late, trying to creep inside unnoticed, head chock full of thought. His mom had said hello in the kitchen, not noticing his tail tucked between his legs as he shuffled off to his room, faced still with his dunes of college shit drifting around aimlessly on his floor. Things he didn’t want to commit to putting away, to looking through and digging up all those bad feelings that came with finding a place for them where they really didn’t belong. He carefully picked around the shit on the floor and cleared off his bed to collapse into it, face down and filled with resolve to stay that way until the sun inevitably rose in the morning. 

Richie had moved once again, and he still had a lot to unpack. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> credit must be given to my pal and cowriter who helped me out considerably with this chapter. i do not envy you for being able to get into richie's headspace with such ease and clarity of detail, but i thank you for it regardless


	12. CHICAGO PART 1: LUCKY SEVEN AND THEN SOME; PITY SNICKERS

**16 MARCH 1997**

**CHICAGO, ILLINOIS**

**2:25 PM**

“I’m saying this only because I love you,” Bev started, trying her best to be gentle, “but you can never put this thing on your body ever again.” 

Eddie sat on the bed in her dorm room, feet free swinging, frowning. His suit was hanging on the back of Beverly’s wardrobe door, limp on its hanger. He’d done his best to keep it flat in his suitcase on the way there, but the poor thing was wrinkled to shit. “We can always iron it, you know, it’s not a complete loss.” 

“Eddie, I can tell just looking at it that none of this fits you. You’d have to grow like a foot and gain forty pounds for this to begin to look right on you.” 

“You were the one who said to bring something nice to wear, and I brought something nice,” he said, a little defensive. He’d had to have a suit on hand in college for internship fairs and the like, and so he’d gotten one. It was a fairly plain khaki affair, and he’d brought a blue button down and a nondescript tie, figuring that would suffice. 

“Is this the shirt you wore to Stan’s?” 

“Yeah?” He’d wanted to look nice.

“It has short sleeves,” she said, as if he had any idea what that implied. “You can’t wear a short sleeve shirt under a jacket like this. You don’t really need the jacket for this anyway.” 

“Bev, there’s nothing I can do about it now, that's the only thing I brought.” His suitcase was otherwise stuffed with jeans and a few different t-shirts. He was currently in a pullover from his school, playing with the frayed cuff of one sleeve. 

Beverly, leaving his suit alone for a moment, crossed the floor to Eddie, reaching up to cup his face. “Eddie, I love you dearly, but you cannot dress yourself to save your life. Trust me, there are worse character flaws, but luckily this is one I have a unique capability to fix for the time being.” 

“Do not turn this into a makeover montage,” Eddie said, pleading. 

“What color shoes did you bring?” 

“Beverly—” 

She was already in his suitcase. Eddie’s heart jolted when she moved a small wrapped package out of the way, nearly stopping her, but Beverly hardly seemed to notice. She found his brown loafers and pulled them out, setting them on her desk. 

“I get that you don’t want me to embarrass you in front of all these fashion people, Bev, but come on.” Eddie sat resolutely on the bed, a little stiff, petrified about what she might come up with. He trusted Beverly with his life, sure, but he’d never exactly been into playing dress up. 

“That’s not it at all, Eddie,” she started, pulling his jacket off its hanger and bringing it over to him. She held up a sleeve to his cheek as he made a face. “Nobody feels good in a suit that doesn’t fit them, and this whole thing is supposed to be fun. This color washes you out. And it’s not that it’s just you, if I had the chance to play around with what everybody was going to be wearing, I would.” 

“I’m not having fun.” 

“I am.”

“When is everyone else getting here?” he asked, hoping to be rescued. 

“Everyone’s getting here in time for dinner, but Mike should be here pretty soon. Stanley and his girlfriend land like an hour after he does,” she said, looking through her own closet for a moment. “We’re going to this little Italian place.” 

“His  _ girlfriend _ —” Eddie worried briefly that she was going to pull out one of her own blouses and dress him in girl’s clothes for this thing, but she instead resurfaced with a belt that matched his shoes. She set that beside the shoes and started for the door. “Sit tight for a minute, I’m gonna go see if Jacob’s in his room, I think you two might be close in size.” 

Eddie protested one last time as she slipped out the door, leaving him alone in her room. He’d gotten there a few hours earlier, the first one to arrive, not afraid of looking eager to see everyone. The show was the next night, and after Bev had picked him up from the airport and taken Eddie out for lunch, she’d gotten increasingly curious about what he was planning to wear. 

_ “I’m much more worried about Richie,” _ she’d reassured him,  _ “but I just wanna see what you brought.” _

What he’d brought had been deemed inadequate. So much for Beverly  _ just looking _ . Eddie didn’t often take much time to decide what he was wearing. He typically snagged something off the hanger and threw it on in the morning, closet still stocked mostly with things his mother had gotten him over the years. It was more t-shirts and sweaters now, keeping things simple, but he had a nice shirt here and there just in case. At least he’d figured they were nice shirts. He was second guessing that now. 

Lips pursed, he swung his feet idly, picking at a stray thread loose on her comforter. 

Beverly’s dorm was in slight disarray, with books and drawings scattered about her desk, a few piles of clothes kicked into corners of the walls and her bed, little items scattered about any flat surface. A rather dry looking plant languished on the window sill, looking out over a frankly impressive skyline which made Eddie wish he lived a little closer to New York. Chicago felt a hell of a lot smaller, but the view was nothing to scoff at. Eddie picked at the dry skin around the edge of one nail, eyeing a Blondie poster next to the door. Eddie wished dearly for this process to be over, but he could always stand to humor Beverly even when his patience for it was running thin. 

And maybe he had been a little dissatisfied about his stupid wrinkly suit anyway, if he really let himself think about it for a moment. What was the harm? 

Beverly reappeared a few moments later, laden with hangers. “Okay, Jacob was home and very generous, the bathroom’s that way, try this first.”

The harm, Eddie soon came to find out, was a looking like he’d unwittingly crawled bleary eyed out of a Sears magazine into the real world. He stood stiffly in front of Beverly’s floor length mirror, wearing a combination she’d decided was her favorite after putting him in several different shirts and slacks, as she knelt on the floor, safety pinning the hem of his pants. Apparently this Jacob fellow was a little taller than him and had told Beverly she could make any non-permanent alterations she pleased. 

“I’m being honest with you Bev, I’m really not sure about this.” 

“These slacks look awesome on you, just relax.” 

“They look a little small.” 

“You’ve just never worn pants that fit you right, Eddie, trust me when I say that.” She smoothed down the makeshift hem of the slacks and stood up, smoothing the shirt down over his shoulders. “This is a nice shirt, too, just make sure not to spill anything on it tomorrow.” She pulled the tag out for a moment, making Eddie’s neck itch. “Ralph Lauren.” 

“Are you sure about the color?” 

“Yes, Eddie, I’m sure about the whole thing.” She cupped his ears and rocked his head side to side a little, which pulled a smile from him for the first time since getting dressed. “I told you to trust me.” She kissed him squarely on the top of his head and clapped him on the shoulders. “I’m satisfied. Go change so we can hang all that up.” 

Beverly had previously offered to let Eddie stay in her dorm room with her, but he’d opted for a hotel room to himself, knowing he was only going to wake up tired and bitchy if he had to share that tiny twin bed or sleep on the floor two nights in a row. It had been decided in the weeks prior that the Losers were to shack up in a hotel a few minute’s walk from Beverly’s campus. Bill and Mike had booked a room together, as had Ben and Richie, which left Stanley and Eddie opting for single rooms. 

Single, so they’d thought. 

Patricia Blum was a surprise guest to everyone, save Beverly, who seemed shocked that no one else had known. 

“I was waiting for the right time to introduce her to you guys,” Stan had told Richie, voice lowered as they waited around the table for Bill, whose plane had landed a little late. He was last reported to have been catching a taxi and was to be arriving shortly. “You can be kind of a lot.” 

The restaurant smelled so pleasantly of pizza and olive oil, a little split-level hideaway place with windows that looked up and out to the sidewalk. Glasses of water and silverware sets dotted the circular table, which already included seven occupants and one empty chair between Mike and Bev. 

“Us? A lot?” Richie asked, slightly too loud, having just paused in the middle of a quick breadstick/lightsaber battle with Ben across the table from him. 

Beverly snorted into her water next to him, nearly dribbling all over her blouse. 

“A lot as in it’s like meeting family,” Stan admitted, smiling regardless. “As if I have a giant group of much loved parents who tend to act like real toddlers when they all get together.” 

“I’m choosing to focus on the ‘much loved’ part of that statement, Stan,” Mike said, raising his glass with a smile. 

“It’s the truth, I can tell by the way he talks about you all,” Patty said. She was a little thing, looking slightly dwarfed next to the gangly thing Stanley had become over the years, voice sweet but distinct like a school teacher’s. While clearly a little intimidated by the prospect of meeting Stanley’s six dearest and oldest friends, she’d warmed up quickly, easing into the energy buzzing around the table. “But I think I’ve seen enough to see the second part of that statement also rings true.” 

“Which part?” Richie asked, snagging a spare straw from the middle of the table and tearing off the end of the wrapper. He took advantage of Eddie taking a drink to shoot the paper wrapper at him, nailing him in the forehead. “The toddler thing? We’re clearly all adults here.” 

“Speak for your fucking self,” Eddie muttered, quite unabashedly looking around for another straw for a counter attack. 

Beverly nearly choked on her water again and Richie thumped her on her back, which got the rest of the table laughing as Ben tried to intercept the last surviving straw and keep it out of Eddie’s reach. Richie felt a little stomp on the toe of his sneaker when it became clear that plan A of retaliation was clearly not going to work, which only widened his grin. Richie picked up a bread crumb and detangled his spoon from his silverware set, planning a catapult attack under the cover of laughter at the table when Mike’s chair abruptly scraped back.

“There he is!” 

Richie whipped his head back over his shoulder to find Bill ducking into the low ceilinged room, hair pulled back, duffel bag over his arm, shoulders drawn together as he started over. 

A chorus of Bill’s name rang around the table, several others getting up to get a hug in before he could make it to his seat. He looked humble and tired in his big flannel and old jeans, gladly clapping Mike in a bear hug and bending down to give Eddie the same. Beverly he squeezed from behind, receiving a thump on the shoulder from Ben, neither of them quick enough to quite get out of their seats before he’d crossed the restaurant to them. Bev made a minor fuss of making him wait to sit so she could stand and get a proper hug in, which made Richie’s chest soar. He didn’t know why just watching his friends love on each other made him feel sky high, but he wasn’t going to question it. 

“Took ya long enough,” Eddie said, beaming at him. 

Bill finally settled in after saying hello to Stanley, clearly also a little surprised by the new addition next to him. “It’s not my ff-f— my f-”

“Fault.” 

“ _ Fault _ his time,” Bill finished, relieved. He glanced around the table, finding expectant eyes on him and looking suddenly a little sheepish. “Hey, don’t m-make this ab-bout me, it was just Richie’s b-birthday and we’re h-here for Bev’s show and St-stanley, who the h-h-h—”

“Hell.”

“ _ Eddie _ .” 

“—hell is this little la-lady?” 

Patty Blum was studying to be a teacher, and, as another shock to the table, had been dating Stanley since their senior year of high school. The two of them had decided to go to college together not far from either of their parents, and had easily stuck together through the past several years. Eddie was enamored with the way they looked at each other, with just how raptly Patty watched Stanley joke around with Richie and how doe eyed Stanley got any time Patty managed to get a word in. Which, admittedly, must have been a little difficult given the excitement gathering like static electricity since the moment Bill finally joined him. 

Eddie hadn’t seen him in ages, and was dying to talk to him sometime over the weekend. Sometimes it took being in the same room as any one of his friends to realize just how desperately he’d missed them, feeling like he was going to burst from the pent up fretting finally flooding out of him when he got to see them again. Bill seemed to relax incrementally as salads were distributed around the table, broad shoulders sinking easily back into his chair. Something seemed to have been bothering him when he walked in, Eddie noticed, but he seemed to be easing up. Still looking a little exhausted and a little sweaty, but still Bill, and still miraculously  _ here _ . 

Eddie watched Richie proudly flash his newly-legal ID and order a glass of wine with dinner, noticing for the first time that night that something about him seemed a little off as well. He’d shown up in black jeans and a denim button down over a plain white t shirt, something strangely uncharacteristically simple for him, hair still springing out all over his head but looking recently trimmed back. Eddie noticed his wrists free of the bracelets he’d seemed to have picked up wearing after entering college, and couldn’t help but be bugged by their absence. While Richie was still being unabashedly Richie, it just felt like someone had thrown a few small buckets of water on his usual roaring bonfire personality. As dinner went on, he seemed to be warming back up, but Eddie’s chest hurt wondering about why the hell he seemed so weirdly dulled down upon entry. 

Having zoned out for a moment, chin in his hand, gazing across the table, Eddie snapped back into the conversation at hand. 

“That may be so, Trashmouth, but who’s the only guy here with a plus one to show for it?” Stanley said, pointing a caesar dressing doused fork accusingly in Richie’s direction. 

“Hold on,” Richie said, glancing to Beverly. “Was that an option?” 

“There was an option on the RVSP,” Mike added, helpfully. 

Beverly confirmed, wiping a little dressing off the corner of her mouth with her napkin and taking with it a smear of lipstick. “Yeah, Richie, did you look at the back of the invite?” 

“Holy fucking shit,” Richie said, immediately perking up. He whipped around to face Eddie, eyes bright. “Kaspbrak, how fast can your mother get to O’Hare? I’ll pick her up myself, get her all dressed up in something  _ real _ nice for tomorrow night, show her a  _ hell _ of a time afterward.” 

“Looks like you’re gonna have a step father yet, Eddie,” Stanley added. 

Balking, Eddie gripped his fork in his fist, sticking threateningly straight up. “I will shove my shoe so far up your ass the laces will come out your fucking nose, so help me God, Richie.”

He’d missed him too, maybe.

The small restaurant was filled with the eight of them, ringing with laughter and memory and warm with a sense of home, despite being hundreds of miles away from where they were brought up. Derry wasn’t necessary when they were together, Derry, in fact, felt more like some strange shared dream, something they had all collectively come up with as kids that couldn’t possibly be real, the boogeyman. 

And not one mention of it at dinner. They glowed like the candles in the center of the table, feeling the protective blanket that only befell them when they were together fall upon every shoulder, even on Patty’s, the newcomer here, when Stan stretched an arm over her shoulders to share it with her. Eddie understood after not long about what he’d meant, about waiting to meet them. Them—this, all of it—was something special, something pure and untainted and forged in formative years they’d never get to go through again. And bringing anyone new, bringing in someone who’d come later in life,

_ “So how the hell did you end up with this loser, Patty?”  _

_ “We were in the same math program when Stanley moved to New York, it didn’t exactly take him too long to charm me into going for milkshakes with him.” _

_ “You two have been dating since  _ high school? _ ”  _

was penetrating the bubble of something held sacred, something perfect. Lucky seven, Lucky EddieRichieBenBevBillMikeStan. So Eddie understood Stan’s initial hesitance. But Eddie also liked her, Eddie was absolutely floored with how Stan was around her, just how easily he smiled from looking at her. Stan had never been quite stoic, but his sense of humor was often a little lost on the rest of them, despite how much they loved him. Patty laughed almost every time the kooky bastard spoke, and Stanley lit up like a firefly every time. There was something brave in it, too, in bringing someone to the table and saying hey, here she is, I love you guys and I love her, and that doesn’t have to cancel out. In saying it didn’t have to be just the Losers. In saying they weren’t the only people on the planet who could ever get along with one another, no matter how often in life it felt that way. It made Eddie wonder briefly if he’d get there, if he’d be sitting in some restaurant or around some table in one of their houses someday with all of them, some girl on his arm, praying and hoping and sick to his stomach thinking they’d have to like her, she’d have to like him, or there was no way this was going to work. Eddie set his chin in his hand, having finished his linguini, sated and full and plain happy. 

Richie had taken up hanging his spoon off the tip of his nose, nodding sagely along and pretending to listen as Mike explained some unabashedly wild story in the long and convoluted history of Miami, waiting for anyone to notice. Beverly was trying to listen to Mike, who clearly had no idea that Richie was waiting to steal all the attention, but her breath was starting to hitch as the spoon swung maddeningly in her peripheral. Ben locked eyes with her for a moment, grinning and losing track of Mike’s story as well in favor of silently wiping his spoon off on his cloth napkin, joining in as inconspicuous as he could. Bev coughed into her napkin and Ben jumped next to Eddie, seemingly having been nudged in the shin. He nearly dropped his spoon but tried again, Richie looking giddy to have a partner in the charade. It seemed as if only Stan and Bill were really invested in poor Mike (Patty invested fully in Stan being invested), and within moments, Beverly was picking up her spoon. 

Eddie had been drinking water all night, cautious about the drinking around

_ Richie _

all of them, but he felt wine warm suddenly, unable to keep a grin down. Richie’s eyes were on him suddenly, eager and pleading, and Eddie silently shook his head, beaming like a fool at him as if he could trick anyone into thinking he was disapproving at the moment. Richie cocked his head and the spoon dangled idiotically, one side clicking against the frame of his glasses, and Eddie had to fight not to snort. He looked like one of those ridiculous monkeys on Discovery Channel with the great drooping noses, the fan of wild hair around his head only supporting that colorful image. Caving, glancing frantically to Mike to make sure he didn’t notice and catching an encouraging and devilish look from Beverly, Eddie too wiped off his spoon and started trying to get it to hang right, catching Stanley even zoning out a little as Mike went on, though not noticing. Eddie was having trouble and Richie looked as if he was going to laugh, Beverly holding her spoon to her face to keep it from falling and Ben glancing at Eddie from the corner of his eye. A wild surge of giggling was starting to pool up in Eddie’s gut, only making his hands shake and making it harder, but he couldn’t get it right, surrounded by his troop of spoon monkeys and those noble loyal friends of his still paying generous attention to Mike. 

Bill barked suddenly and everyone jumped, Ben’s spoon clattering obnoxiously to his plate, scared by Bill’s sudden howl of laughter, a big hand clutching the front of his shirt. Mikey stopped talking abruptly, looking around to find himself surrounded by a pack of idiots with silverware stuck to their faces (Ben scrambling to fit his back on where it had slipped off, Eddie still struggling) and joined in cackling too, slapping a hand over Bill’s arm. 

“You  _ jackasses _ ,” Mike wheezed, patting Bill on the back, who looked close to tears from laughter. 

Beverly was having trouble keeping her spoon on and was trying to bug Patty into joining, who had also just noticed and eagerly went for her silverware bundle. 

“Richie, how the hell do you do that?” Stan asked, face pink from giggling, having just as much trouble as Eddie. “Patty—” 

Patty had just figured it out, and Stan broke up laughing too, ringing around the restaurant. None of them noticed a few glances from the other patrons, though no one seemed particularly bothered by a bunch of fools having a stupid good time. 

“Beverly taught me forever ago,” Richie admitted, reaching over her to try to take Bill’s spoon before he could attempt it too, trying to fit that one on his eyebrow. “She’s the genius behind this one.” 

Eddie swore loudly, spreading his arms when the spoon finally stuck. “I got it!” 

This sent Richie into hysterics, having already been holding down laughter, and the table rang loudly with the sounds of a few more spoons dropping. Bill was, by then, trying to take Mike’s spoon from him, his having been stolen, and Mike was putting up a good fight. They had to collect themselves when the poor waitress came around to deliver the checks, everyone attempting to act like an adult for a few moments and scrabble for cash in their wallets. Ben snagged Richie’s check and insisted to pay for him as a late birthday gift, which Richie fought and eventually lost, and the giggling died steadily to a simmer, the energy still buzzing loudly in each of their ears. 

Eddie looked around the table as he caught his breath, his friends with rosy cheeks and jaws sore from smiling, fat and happy and all together, Stan’s hand on Patty’s knee, Beverly, bumping Richie’s shoulder with her head to ask him to help her calculate the tip, Ben and Bill and Mike scrabbling jokingly over one pen, and he felt again like he might just burst. He could pop right there like an overfull balloon and die happy. 

“You guys can get back to the hotel alright?” 

They’d walked Bev home to her dorm building as a group, Patty and Bev’s six guard dogs. She stood against the doorframe of her building, the desk attendant having just buzzed her in, looking radiant even with her hair springing out of the loose ponytail she’d gathered into earlier. 

“We’ll make it al-alright,” Bill reassured her with a smile. It wasn’t a long walk. 

“Yeah, we’ve got Eddie with us, you could drop this little guy blindfolded in the middle of Chicago and he’d find the nearest CVS within minutes, it’s like there’s a GPS up here,” Richie added helpfully, jabbing at Eddie’s temple. 

Bev grinned at the collection of them, starting to turn to go inside, the door braced against her shoulder. “I might be a little scarce early tomorrow, I’ve still got some stuff to get together before the show, but I’ll see you guys at the reception. At six, got it?” 

A collection of got its and head nods. 

“What time, Richie?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. Mike snickered. 

“I’m rooming with Ben, we’ll be there on time.” 

Ben ruffled Richie’s hair teasingly. “I’ll get him there, don’t worry. And let us know if you need help with anything tomorrow, okay, Bev?” 

“Oh, I would never hesitate to bother any of you.” She grinned, looking them over one last time. “Night, guys.” 

A chorus of goodnights, and Bev turned to go. 

The walk back to the hotel was short and quiet, content and tired. Richie whooped when Stan and Patty got in the elevator together, only to receive a middle finger from Stan before the doors slid shut on them. Bill, Ben, Mike, Richie, and Eddie all lingered around the lobby for a moment, looking between each other. Eddie felt particularly short. He was trying not to feel pissy about it. He swore Ben had somehow gotten a little taller between Stan’s party and now. Eddie was oddly nervous, squeezing his wrist in one hand. 

“You guys wanna go out for brunch or something tomorrow?” Richie asked, hands in the pockets of his jacket. 

“You’re g-gonna be awake b-before noon?” 

“Touche.” 

“We can grab lunch around somewhere,” Mike offered. “Keep ourselves on schedule then come back here to get ready.” 

“Powder our noses, as they say,” Richie said, sliding a sly grin to Bill. 

“Heard the pizza around here is some kind of noteworthy.”

Richie sniffed. “Was that a little New York pettiness I’m picking up on, Eddie?” 

Eddie flushed defensively. “Why the fuck would I be petty about pizza? I heard it’s good. There’s not some unspoken pizza competition between New York and Chicago, I could care less—” 

“Give it a rest, you two,” Mike said, fond and tired. He coordinated the writing down of everyone’s room numbers so he could do rounds and make sure everyone was on time the next day, and split off with Bill to head up to bed. 

Eddie felt his heart jump up in his throat, Richie yawning and Ben starting to head for the elevators. “Hey—”

Richie looked down at him, Eddie again felt short.

He cleared his throat. “I’ve got something for you, I didn’t wanna bring it to the restaurant.” 

“Rich, I’m gonna get some shut eye,” Ben said. “You’ve got your key?”

“Yup yeah I—” Richie scrabbled for it in his pocket and waved it at Ben, who then finally proceeded for the elevators, leaving the two of them in the lobby. “Please tell me it’s a Mercedes, I asked Santa and he never got back to me on that one.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “No, it’s just something little, I left it in my room.”

The elevator ride was weirdly quiet, Richie humming along to the boring song playing scratchy over the speaker in the ceiling. Eddie tapped his foot, looking anywhere and noticing a tear in the hem of Richie’s jacket at the back. 

“What happened there?”

Richie snapped out of a momentary daze. “Hm? Oh,” he pulled the jacket around a little to look at it, blinking. The doors slid open and the two of them stepped out onto Eddie’s floor. “I dunno, I probably caught it hopping some fence. There’s not really much to do at home.” 

Of course. Eddie nodded, chewing on the inside of his cheek and leading Richie down the hallway. He unlocked his door and slipped inside, leaving it ajar in case Richie wanted to follow. This should only take a second. Without looking to see if Richie had so much as crossed the threshold, Eddie flipped open his suitcase at the foot of his bed and rifled through it, picking out the small package stuffed between a couple t-shirts. It was wrapped plainly and a little clumsily in shiny green wrapping paper, a white Christmas bow stuck with little grace (but with no lack of scotch tape and love) on top. Eddie turned around, stiff, finding Richie leaning with an elbow braced above his head against the doorframe, taking up most of it. He straightened up too, face breaking into a grin. 

“Aw,” he crooned, “is that a lil’ birfday present for lil’ ol’ moi?” 

“Don’t ruin it.” Eddie padded back to the door and passed it over, looking at the collar of Richie’s shirt and not his face.

“Can I open it now?” 

Eddie nodded, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. He’d just gotten a haircut, it was a little itchy. “It’s really small, I just saw it and thought of you—”

“Eds,” Richie stopped him, grinning down at the unwrapped cassette in his hands. “Dude, this is really sweet.” 

_ The Very Best of Marvin Gaye _ , again, this time on cassette. Eddie chewed his lip. “I couldn’t find another copy of the record like the one I have that you liked, I know you’d probably rather have the record, but I looked in every shop I could and couldn’t find it, that was the best I could do. I mean this way you can listen to it on the drive home, at least, so you don’t—”

“And the Snickers bar?” 

Richie had discovered the second item in the package, which was mostly to blame for the awkwardness in the wrapping. Not that Eddie was the best wrapper. He prayed it wasn’t melted. 

“Oh, that’s— it’s a joke.” He gestured uselessly. 

Richie looked a little baffled, cocking his head but still smiling regardless. “A j—” 

“I know you’re more of a Skittles guy,” Eddie started, weirdly almost defensive. Shit, he should have also gotten him Skittles just in case— “But it’s like—” he waved a hand. “It’s a pity snicker, it’s like— when you don’t land a joke you still get a.” He trailed off, realizing his was the joke that hadn’t landed. 

And Richie was the one snickering. “I still get Snickers at the very least?” 

Eddie breathed out a little laugh. “Yeah.”

“That’s so fucking stupid.”

“Yeah.” 

Eddie jumped, not expecting the bear hug. Richie was wrapped around him in an instant, squeezing him for a truly wonderful second before releasing him and adjusting his ruffled hair for him. “Thanks, Eds.” 

“Yeah,” he breathed again, thoughtlessly pushing up his sleeve, feeling a little warm in the face. “Happy birthday, drink responsibly, yada yada yada.” 

“You  _ do _ love me.” 

Eddie grinned, finally looking up to his face. “Yeah, I guess so. Is it that obvious?” He braced a hand against the doorframe. “Did everybody else at least get you a card or a phone call?” 

“Oh yeah, they all remembered.” Richie nodded. 

“Good.”

“Yeah.” Eddie nodded. 

Richie stood for a moment more, holding his candy and his cassette in both hands like they were something precious, gaze locked on Eddie’s for a few seconds before breaking it and taking a step back. “I’m gonna go try and get some sleep so I’m not late to lunch, but thank you, man. Really.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Richie started to retreat, Eddie calling after him. “You need all the beauty rest you can get, good fucking God.” 

“Good to know you’re still a mean little bastard, Eds.” 

“Go to bed.” 

“I’m trying, you’re the one who keeps talking!” 

Eddie shut the door, standing there for a moment and hearing Richie’s last little snicker fade away before resting his forehead against the cool wood, letting his eyes fall closed.


	13. CHICAGO PART 2: IT’S NOT A FEAR OF HEIGHTS, RICH, IT’S A FEAR OF FALLING

**17 MARCH 1997**

**5:31 PM**

As it turned out, deep dish was fucking mind blowing. Hardly a word was exchanged between anyone over lunch, everyone so goddamn happy to be digging out mushrooms and pepperoni from the depths of cheesy saucy glory. Maybe Richie felt a little overzealous about the whole thing, but holy fuck, was he  _ loving _ Chicago. 

They made it back to the hotel to get ready on time, Richie perched on the edge of his bed as Ben rifled through his suitcase and stood. 

“It’s not black tie.” 

“That is a black tie,” Ben said, pointing to the in fact very black tie in Richie’s hand. Richie looked at him hopelessly for a moment as Ben tried to figure out a bowtie, standing in front of the full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door of their room. 

“No, Ben, I mean you don’t need to wear a whole suit. Bev said so.” 

“She did?” His voice pitched up a little, face looking a little pale when he whipped around again to look at Richie. “What did she say, exactly?” 

“Jesus, dude, you look like a groomsman. Just lose the blazer and the bowtie, it makes it a little less formal.” 

“Are you sure?” 

Richie popped his collar and started looping his tie around his neck, nodding. “Yeah, dude, you look good.” Ben did, in fact, look sleek as hell. Even when he nervously hung up his jacket and stuffed it back into the tiny closet by the door, he looked fantastic. Silvery shirt, black slacks, belt with a silver buckle, black shoes resting on top of his suitcase. And the undone bowtie hanging from his neck was really something else, Richie almost commented that he should just roll with it like that but stopped himself. “Where the hell did you get those duds, dude, holy shit.” 

“My mom helped me pick out something nice for this internship thing I did over the summer, we went down to Dallas and met with this big architecture firm and had to get all spiffed up for this gala thing.” He lost the bowtie, Richie only mourning that look for a split second. “So, uh, Macy’s.” 

“I had to borrow these pants from my dad,” Richie said, glancing down at his own slacks. “I was just gonna wear black jeans, but my mom advised me against it.” He stood up, tightening his tie and taking over the space in front of the mirror. He was kinda bummed he’d opted for a plain black tie, but it matched the pants and the shirt was loud enough on its own that he needed a solid color on top of it. Maybe he could have done stripes? No, maybe this was best. “She did say, and I quote, that my little outfit here was  _ creative _ .” 

“Was that meant to be constructive criticism?” 

“You tell me,” he said, turning around and spreading his arms to show Ben the completed look. 

Ben smiled. “You look great, Rich.” 

“Much obliged, Haystack.”

“And only a little bit like a bowling alley carpet.”

“It’s  _ creative _ .”

A knock came at the door, and Richie went to get it as Ben pulled on his socks. He opened the door to Bill, hair down, dressed, looking more than a little stressed out. 

Richie’s eyebrows pulled together. “Heya, Big B—” 

“Hey, Richie, could I ch-chat with you for a second out here?” 

Richie glanced back into the room, finding Ben looking at the two of them, and held up a finger to him as he slipped outside, only a little trepidation about this. “Sure, yeah, what’s up?” 

Bill was dressed, inexplicably, in all black, some cotton button down and slacks and, also a little oddly, black work boots. Then again, Richie was planning on wearing his canvas sneakers, so it couldn’t really be that odd. Bill wrung clammy hands, taking a long breath. 

“Dude, why are you bugging out?” 

“Was I acting str-strangely last n— at dinner?” Bill said, finally.

Richie furrowed his brows, glancing down the empty hallway then back to Bill. “Nah, dude, you were absolutely fine.” He couldn’t imagine why he’d think that in the first place, Bill had been perfectly Bill. Slotted back in with the rest of them easy as could fucking be. “It was like no time passed, man, don’t sweat it.” 

“Okay,” Bill said. He shook his head. “I’m feeling a lih—” he sighed, closing his eyes. “Little weird.” 

“You’re acting a lot weird.” Richie crossed his arms casually, leaning back against the door, looking him over. “What is it?” 

“I have been,” he started, going slowly so as not to trip up, “sorta de-detoxing, the last wuh-week or so.” 

“Okay.” Richie shrugged, trying to be nonchalant despite sensing something else under this. “That’s good?” 

“I didn’t wanna sh-sh-show up all—”

“Stoned?” 

“Yeah.” Bill let out another breath, trying to soothe himself, shaking his hands out. “So I’m f-feeling off, you know?” 

Richie did know, to a certain degree. “Dude, you have no fucking clue how many goddamn times I’ve tried to kick nicotine, it’s fucking hellish. If anybody knows, I know.” He placed a hand on Bill’s broad shoulder. “I did notice you sucking down water like a fish last night, but that’s about it.” 

Bill nearly laughed, looking just a tad too anxious for it. “Okay, good.” He looked Richie up and down, blinking, just then noticing his outfit. “What the h-hell are you wearing?” 

“If anyone else questions this shirt I swear to fuck—” 

Bill plucked at his sleeve, smiling. “Wh-where’s the rest?” 

“What?” 

“You’re w-wearing short sleeves and a tie, dude.” 

“So what? I just got this shirt, it’s cool as hell.” 

“It’s c-cool, it—” Bill did laugh that time. “I can’t judge, man, I wore all bl-black so I would-d-n’t show up wearing something stupid.” 

“Ah, still colorblind, I see? Smart.” 

“Couldn’t r-risk it in front of B-bev.”

“Of course not.” 

“How’s Ben?” 

“He looks fucking striking, we’re gonna be peeling girls off him all night.” 

Bill smiled, wide and warm. “Sounds like a p-plan.” 

Richie socked him lightly in the shoulder. “So you’re off drinking smoking and snorting of any kind tonight?” 

“Yeah, I’m gonna d-do my d-d-damndest.” 

“Let me know if you need anything, dude.” He punched his arm again, hoping genuinely that he wouldn’t. If he really did, that was a sign of something else going on here. He wasn’t sure exactly how deeply Bill had started diving into a vice or two here or there, or exactly what all of his vices were, and he hoped to God it was no more severe than a slight weed reliance. “Keep drinking water, and don’t tell Richie, but I’ll slip you one of his cigs if you need to take the edge off.” Richie winked. 

Bill looked endlessly grateful, perking up when Ben opened the door, fastening a watch around his wrist. 

“Hey, Rich— hi, Bill,” he said, smiling softly.

Bill stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked forward on the balls of his feet, grinning back. “Lookin’ g-good, Haystack.” 

“Same to you, man.” He elbowed Richie lightly. “We should get down there soon, dude, and I don’t think they’ll want you going barefoot.”

Richie swore and ducked inside to grab his sneakers and slap on some cologne, hearing Ben and Bill from the hallway. 

“Is Mike ready?” 

“He’s b-been ready for, like, an hour, he l-left to check on Stan and Ed-eddie.” 

“Excellent.” 

Mike was ready, as it turned out, and Mike also looked absolutely fantastic, which made Richie worry momentarily if he should have maybe at least opted for long sleeves. He rushed out of the elevator to meet Ben, Bill, and Richie in the lobby, buttoning the cuffs of a very flattering burgundy shirt, pants grey plaid with the same color running through them. 

Richie whistled. “Way to make us all look bad, Hanlon.” 

“What?” Mike asked, quite clearly having no idea what Richie meant. 

Richie glanced to Ben and Bill, who looked at him slightly blankly, and cleared his throat. “You look awesome, man.” 

Mike clapped his shoulder, looking a little distracted. “Stanley and Eddie are gonna catch up with us over there in a couple minutes, Eddie told us to just go ahead to make sure we make it on time.” 

Ben and Bill both looked a little pale, and Mike looked quickly between them. “Did you two see a ghost or something and not tell me?” He threw his arms around both their shoulders and started for the doors of the lobby. “Let’s get excited, let’s get a move on, come on.” 

Richie drummed on Mike’s back and followed, a little skip in his step. “Ben’s nervous to see Beverly and Bill’s—” 

_ “Richie—” _

“Dude—” 

Mike laughed, patting Ben. “Aw, buddy. Don’t sweat it.” 

Ben, red, slumped his shoulders. “I can’t stand either of you.” 

“D-do any of you know wh-where w-we’re going?” 

The four of them stopped short, Richie looking worriedly to Bill, before Ben whipped his crumpled invite out of his back pocket, searching it over hurriedly. “Okay, the address is on here.” 

They all breathed a collective sigh of relief. 

Richie was always relieved to have Bill next to him so as not to be the tallest bastard in the room, but considering his current company, he was getting looks anyway. All four of them had maxed out at least a little over six feet, looking like a small herd of bulls in one stylish little china shop, a little lost and out of place. Richie didn’t realize a room full of fashion majors could be quite so intimidating, and was starting to regret the dumb shirt with each passing moment. Not the loudest pattern in the room, for once, but everyone else looked a tad more tasteful. 

Ben kept checking his watch, checking the clock on the wall, and glancing at the double doors at the entrance of the event space, one foot bobbing rapidly. Richie didn’t hear what Mike said when he leaned close to him to calm him down a little, instead watching Bill pick through his pockets for something to tie his hair back with. Richie rubbed his arms, cold this close to the doors, having left his jacket at the hotel so he wouldn’t have to carry it around all night. Several little round cocktail tables dotted the room, a stage at the far end with an added catwalk extending out from it, lined with chairs, a little makeshift bar set up along one wall. Beverly had mentioned this being a student run sort of thing, that this was some old ballroom sort of area owned by the university for events like this. He was itching for a drink, ready to find Beverly and the rest of them and get things started. Looking up, Richie found a heavy, glittering chandelier hanging over the center of the room, which absorbed all his attention for nearly a solid minute. The room was buzzing with people and talk and energy, and he was glad to pull out for a split second, not wanting to admit to himself that he was getting a little overwhelmed. 

Bev’s voice penetrated the low din and Richie’s thick skull and brought him back down to Earth, calling any combination of their names from somewhere within the gaggle of students milling about the tables. 

Beverly appeared out of seemingly nowhere, hair pulled half back and curled, glittering with a gold pin. She was a dream in emerald green, impossibly sprinting toward the four of them in her kitten heels. 

Richie felt his heart swell, opening his arms to receive her. “Aaand she’s off like lightning folks, Beverly Marsh makes a beeline for the morons hiding in the corner, here she comes, all five-foot-ferocious of her, head of the pack, down the forty, the thirty—” Richie was cut off with a grunt as Bev rushed into him and clapped her arms around his middle, laughing, thrilled. Richie almost went to ruffle her hair, then got a whiff of all the hairspray and decided against it. She pulled back after a moment, compulsively smoothing down Richie’s tie and giving a few little side hugs to the other boys in turn. 

“Look at you handsome devils,” she said, nose scrunching. “I’ve known you guys my whole life and I never thought I’d see you all cleaned up like this, not too bad.” 

“Not so bad yourself,” Mike said, offering a hand to spin her. She took it, going slow so as not to break her ankle. Her dress had a sheen to it, catching gold in the light. “Did you make the dress?”

“No, but I altered it,” she said, plucking at its one strap over her shoulder. She looked radiant, cleaned up in that way only girls seemed to be able to. Richie always wondered why when guys in their twenties got dressed up they tended to look like uncomfortable frat boys in suits and when girls did it they looked like Hollywood movie stars. Didn’t seem super fair. “Have you guys seen Eddie yet?” 

“He’s on his way with Stanley,” Ben offered, hands in deep his pockets. Richie wanted so badly to call out the heat in his face, all kinds of Ben bashful around Bev in this chandelier lighting, but he’d let him have this one. Bill looked a little shy as well, hiding best he could behind Mike’s shoulder. 

“Man, I figured if anyone, those two were going to be early. You’ve managed to surprise me.” She made a little tug at Bill’s ponytail to get a grin out of him, which worked easily.

“Bev!” someone called, Beverly whipping over her shoulder in a flurry of brushed out curls to the girl walking up behind her, arms spread, a champagne flute in one silver nailed hand. “You just gonna run off or do I finally get to meet these Maine boys you keep talking about?” 

Richie was suddenly less interested in the chandelier. She was a little shorter than Bev but in taller heels, dressed in a black jumpsuit with a deep v neckline and some kind of crystal looking belt. Her hair fell in choppy light bangs over her brows, springing out over her shoulders, flouncing behind her as she strode up. 

“Jesus, they’re all fucking gigantic.” 

The Maine boys in question each lifted a hand, looking to Beverly for the introductions. She flicked a stray hair off her friend’s shoulder. “This is Kay, you’ve all heard of her.” 

Beverly had told a few stories of this infamous Kay at Stan’s party, and a few additionally to Richie over the phone. She looked every ounce of spitfire as Beverly had described her to be, and Richie rocked back on his heels with a grin to say hello as the other boys did in turn. 

“And this is Bill, Ben, Mikey, and Richie.” 

Kay looked them over, Richie catching her giving him a quick up down. He was caught off guard when she spoke up again. “Where’s the flood, Buddy Holly?” 

Taken aback, Richie quickly glanced down, realizing that, in fact, the very tops of his high tops and a little strip of his black socks were exposed below the hem of his pants. He really had to outgrow his own father, didn’t he? 

Bill laughed behind him, clapping Richie’s shoulder. “Oh, we’ve heard of her, but I like her in person even better.” 

“Do you have anything in the show, Kay?” Ben asked politely. 

“I do, in fact,” she said, tapping her free hand on Beverly’s shoulder. “And Miss Marsh here will be so kindly modeling it for me.” 

“You didn’t tell us you were  _ modeling _ ,” Richie said, incredulous. He laughed. “You didn’t put her in super high heels, did you?” 

“I wanted to put her in platforms but I didn’t want her falling off the stage, trust me.” 

Bev brushed her off with a little grin. “It’s a student show, we all have to model for each other, it’s not like we have the budget to hire actual models.” 

“You could be an actual model,” Ben said, so helpfully, only getting redder and trying to recover. “I mean there’s no reason you couldn’t be.” It didn’t help much. 

Beverly beamed at him despite it. “Kay,” she said, tapping a red painted nail on Kay’s glass, “can you go grab me one of those?” 

“‘Course,” she said, flicking the strap of Beverly’s dress and leaning over her shoulder in a stage whisper, pointing between the boys. “Which is the one with the girlfriend?” 

“Stan’s not here yet,” she said, pushing at her. “Go, come on, I want champagne.” 

Kay retreated, leaving Beverly sighing and rolling her eyes. Richie wondered for a split second if he should go with her for a drink himself. “She’s a fucking handful.” 

“Well, you need someone to keep you on your toes in our absence,” Richie said, finally pulling his gaze back to Beverly. 

“You’d go mad with boredom otherwise,” Mike added. 

“Ain’t that the truth.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “You guys all look awesome, I’m really happy everybody made it.” She thumbed a ring on her pointer finger. “It means the world to me.” 

“We all are,” Bill said, easy and slow, smiling warmly at her. 

“I really hope Stan and Eddie aren’t— oh, there they—” Beverly stood up on her toes, waving toward the door. “Stanley!” 

Stanley appeared, hand in hand with Patty, Eddie’s dark head just visible behind them. He waved back brightly, leading Patty over by the hand. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t find my tie!” 

Stan was in blue, with pleated khaki slacks and a striped tie, Patty in a similarly colored tea-length blue dress and a little sweater. 

“Oh, sweet lord, they match,” Richie said, grinning. “How cute of you two to wear your homecoming outfits, you look positively high-school-sweetheart about the whole thing.”

“You can watch your mouth, Rich,” Stan said, “I’m the one with the date.” 

It took Eddie a moment to catch up, having checked his coat at the little counter by the door, shifting through the crowd of students seeming to be trying to make himself even smaller. 

Richie’s heart dropped out his fucking ass, forgetting immediately what he’d meant to comeback with. 

Bev said something he only caught in the periphery of his mind, meeting Eddie just before he got to the rest of the group and smoothing down the lapels of his shirt for him, Eddie looking nothing short of bashful and nothing short of a million fucking bucks. Eddie was usually adorable, that was unavoidable, but this was a whole new thing. This was drop dead handsome, and Richie was standing there, silently eating his words. His shirt was between pink and orange, some coral kind of color, Richie hadn’t seen him in a color that bright since they were thirteen and Eddie was still in his candy-colored polo phase. And Jesus fucking Christ, was this the grown up alternative. Eddie did, in fact, look grown up, he looked put together and clean cut, hair gelled, clean shaven, the lines of the collar cutting smoothly around his neck, seams sitting just right on his shoulders only making him look broader, and God, Jesus, Mary, Richie was going to convert back to Catholicism for all the praying he was doing, did those slacks fit him. Richie wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen Eddie in pants that fit him. They were navy blue, hitting him right where they should and bringing in his waist, cutting a clean, straight legged silhouette, and Richie had to quite immediately pull his eyes back up and remember the fact that he had to say at least something to Stanley. His brain fought for purchase, words scattering to the corners of his mind with no real sense. 

Beverly saved him from having to say anything, proudly getting behind Eddie and holding his shoulders to show him off. “This I should get extra credit for, I managed to get Eddie into something that didn’t look like a drunk uncle at a backyard wedding.” 

Eddie’s expression looked like that of a wolverine’s when forcefully stuffed into a frilly pink dress, but Richie could see the little tinge of insecurity behind it. Of course he would have never dressed himself like that in a million years, but Richie could have gotten down on his knees and kissed Beverly’s shoes in gratitude. Eddie swept an arm, looking up at Beverly under thick eyebrows. “Do you fucking see what Stanley’s wearing? It’s almost exactly what I was going to wear.” 

“Then she saved us from having the same issue as two girls in the same dress at prom, Eddie, I would be grateful.” 

“And I would listen to Stanley,” Beverly said, patting Eddie’s back. 

“Yeah,” Richie added, uselessly, which only brought Eddie’s eyes to him for the first time, making his stomach jump up to his throat. God, that was his fucking color, wasn’t it? 

“Says the guy dressed like a depressed circus clown,” Eddie said, shoulders tense up to his ears. “You look like you just rolled up to a funeral in a tiny little car stuffed with a dozen other Bozos to go honk your noses into handkerchiefs in the rain.” 

“And you look like Malibu Barbie’s little gay friend, but I don’t hate it.” 

“W-was Ken gay?” Bill asked, quietly.

“His name is Ken?” Ben asked. 

“My God, you guys,” Stanley started, “already?” 

“No rest for the stupid,” Beverly said, kicking Richie softly in the shin. “Don’t you dare make fun of him, he looks great.” 

“He does, but is he still allowed to make fun of me?” 

Richie was met with a chorus of yeses, making him throw up his hands. Eddie looked mildly satisfied with that. 

“Sweet fuck, there’s more.” Kay reappeared, two full flutes in hand. She handed one to Beverly. “So this is—” she looked up, trying to remember, “Stanley and Eddie and—?” she looked to Patty, who smiled, hands linked behind her back. 

“Patty, I’m Stanley’s girlfriend.” 

“Lucky Stanley,” Kay said, giving her a little wink. “You’re precious as hell. Cute shoes.”

“Thank you,” Patty said, absolutely beaming. Stan put his arm around her shoulders and she grinned up at him. 

He looked like he felt like maybe the luckiest man on earth. “Nice to meet you.” 

“Hi, Kay,” Eddie said, standing close to Stan. 

“Beverly did a great job on you, I see,” Kay said, nodding at him.

“You two have met?” Richie asked, hands in his pockets, playing with a stray thread in there somewhere.

“He got here early yesterday and Kay came by my room to say hi when we were hanging out after lunch,” Beverly explained. “And I did, didn’t I?” 

“Absolutely,” 

“Guys,” Eddie said, looking as if he’d rather combust than have any more attention drawn to his outfit. He was out of luck, considering Richie had already accepted the fact that he wasn’t taking his eyes off him all night. 

“Aw, he’s bashful,” Kay said, scrunching her nose at him. “You look good, relax.” 

“I’m—” Eddie looked about to fight that, realizing he looked tense as a wire, and took a breath instead. “Do you guys wanna get a drink?” 

“Absolutely,” Ben said, looking relieved. Bill looked a little withered beside him, and Richie mouthed  _ water _ at him, giving him a thumbs up and receiving a tired look. 

“Richie—” Beverly said, placing a hand on his arm before breaking into a grin. “Oh fuck, I don’t even have to sneak you anything anymore do I?” 

“My dear, our days of conspiring against the drinking age are finally over, I’m afraid.” 

“When was your birthday?” Kay asked. 

Richie started fishing out his wallet to retrieve his ID as their crowd started over toward the bar. “Little over a week ago, and I still feel like I’m gonna get in trouble every time I so much as look at a bottle of wine in public.” 

“Your first drink’s on me, then, birthday boy,” Kay said, grinning over her shoulder and leading the pack. Her hair was light when she walked, curls airy, glitter on her shoes leaving little trails of silver behind her as she walked, catching up to Ben. 

Maybe Richie would be able to tear his eyes away from Eddie for a split second now and then, in that case. 

Eddie’s shoes scuffed on the carpet behind Richie and Mike caught his arm, keeping him from very nearly tripping over himself. 

They managed to fit around one cocktail table, drinks scattered among them, a plate of finger sandwiches between them, getting in maybe a half hour of chatting before Kay and Beverly had to head backstage to get everything settled for the main event. 

Ben looked a little lost, gazing now and then at the door Bev had disappeared behind, and several times Richie made a joke of snapping his fingers near his ear to get him to focus, the poor whipped bastard. 

Stanley was pleasantly entertained by nearly anything Patty seemed to have to say, looking fantastically happy that this whole weekend was going well. He commented on it three times, that this weekend was going so well, and Richie was honestly very happy for him, but he knew. He was there. Patty did seem like a truly lovely girl, and she and Stan were obviously a little sickeningly in love, so he couldn’t complain too much, as much as he wanted to hang with Stan while they were all together for now. He tried not to feel too antsy about that, realizing his time was a little more precious now that he was so much further from Albany. 

Bill sipped his water like he’s just barely earned his one week chip from AA, looking mournfully at Mike’s drink next to him, and Richie had to make a note to check up on him the next chance he got. 

Something in his gut told him this wasn’t what quitting smoking weed looked like. While Richie was scared to find out what was going on, he owed it to Bill to at least try. Fuck knew the poor guy suffered silently and alone enough, it was an unfortunate aspect of his nature. 

Mike and Eddie had been chatting animatedly for a while, Richie trying not to look at him too doe eyed across the table. He’d recovered from his worry that Eddie might remember their conversation in the bathroom, but the fact that he’d said it aloud didn’t help the fact that it was true. That he’d spoken feelings into existence, and that he couldn’t just wave them away. He hadn’t quit grinning about the cassette or the stupid Snickers joke since he’d turned and left Eddie’s doorway the previous night, and he was doing his best to swallow down a thing or too and behave as normally as was possible. 

If there was one thing that couldn’t come out around the losers, it was all that mess. The fact that Stanley was in on it at all worried Richie more than he cared to admit, but he’d been graciously silent on the issue as of late. 

Bill finished his third glass of water and declared he was going to run to the bathroom before the show started, and Richie saw his chance to slip away with him and get a word in. The two of them peeled off from the group, hearing Stan laugh about something as they ducked through the throng for the restrooms. 

“Are you holding up okay?” 

“Yeah, I’m good,” Bill said, despite looking a little relieved to have Richie ask. He held the door for Richie, which Richie almost walked into and quickly sidestepped, glancing around the bathroom and finding it empty for the time being. 

“Bill, hey.” Richie wasn’t sure how to ask. He also realized a second later that Bill was being honest and was actually here to rock a piss, standing a little awkwardly next to a urinal and blinking at Richie. “Okay, I’ll give you a second.” He held up his hands and turned to the sinks, finding a little bowl of mints. He stuffed one into his pocket and popped one into his mouth.

“I told you, Rich, I’ll as-ask if I need help,” Bill said behind him. 

“I know, and you haven’t, but unfortunately I know you too well to let this go this fast.” 

“Let wh-what go?” 

Richie heard a zip, and Bill was at his side at the sink to wash his hands in a moment. “You don’t look good.” 

“I told you why, R-richie.” 

“Just be straight with me man, what were you using?” 

“You kn-know what I was using, you w-were there.” 

“I’m not there all the time, dude, I don’t know what you get up to in your spare time.” Richie pressed his hands to the sink, leaning toward him a little, serious. “I’m not gonna grill you, but you’ve been churning out books awful fucking fast, dude, you have like three new novel length fucking— dirges the last time I saw you.”

Bill shook his hands out, eyes looking a little dark. He shook his hands off, snatching a paper towel and straightening up to look at Richie. “What are you r-really asking, man?” 

Richie, not really wanting to, knowing it wasn’t a huge deal but it wasn’t a small one, looked him over for a moment. A stray strand of brown hair had fallen from his ponytail, curving along his jaw. 

“Are you nervous about staying in this hotel?” 

“What?” Richie asked, confused. He shook his head. “Why would I—” 

Bill shook his head, sighing. “I just had to ask, don’t worry about it.” 

“You’re freaking me out, man.” 

“I’ve b-been getting that a lot recently, Rich,” Bill said, only managing to look more exhausted. “I know.” 

“Are you doing coke?” 

The bathroom door banged open and both of them jumped, Richie instinctively grabbing hold of both of Bill’s arms. 

“Jesus, it looked heavier—” Eddie stood there in the doorway, rushing in before the door swung shut again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bang it.” 

Richie and Bill blinked at him. 

Eddie looked between the two of them, sensing the cloud of awkwardness settling in over the bathroom.“Was I uh, interrupting something?” 

“What— no,” Richie said, letting go of Bill immediately. “You just fucking scared me, dude.” 

Eddie wet his lips. “Shows about to start.” 

“Right,” Bill said, grabbing one more paper towel and quickly wiping his hands, heading for the door, patting Eddie on the head as he slipped past. “I’ll talk t-to you afterwards, Richie.” 

Richie stood there, planning on holding him to it. He watched him go, sighing, eyes suddenly falling on Eddie, who was still standing there. “What?” 

He raised his eyebrows, giving him a look like a chastising school teacher. “Did you wash your hands?” 

“Oh my fucking God.” 

They had to muscle through the crowd for a good seat as the lights dimmed, a few little stage lights coming up, some standing lights turning on along the sides of the catwalk. The remaining seats were scattered, and Richie ended up between Eddie and Ben a few rows back. Mike and Bill had had to stick to the standing room at one of the closer cocktail tables, and Stanley and Patty had succeeded in getting seats a little closer to the front.

“Have either of you guys ever seen a fashion show before?” Ben asked them.

“Nope.”

“Nuh-uh.” Eddie shook his head. “I honestly have no idea what to expect here.” 

“I just wanna see Bev,” Richie admitted, settling back into his chair. It reminded him of the ones in the church basement where they sometimes held little pancake breakfasts on Sundays after mass when he was a teenager. He bobbed his leg, unsettled, part of him just wanting this to be over. “How are we supposed to tell which things are hers?” 

“She loosely described them to me yesterday, but I dunno if I’m gonna be any help, I’m kinda useless when it comes to clothes,” Eddie admitted.” 

Richie had noticed the pins in the hems of his pants when he’d sat down and had decided to smile quietly about that, barely resisting goading him about it. “Yeah, pal, we know.”

Eddie elbowed him. 

“Bev’s not wearing her own stuff, is she?” Ben asked. 

“No, I think just something Kay did.” 

“She seems cool,” Eddie said, offhandedly. 

Richie glanced down at him. He was focused on the stage, picking at the button on his cuff. Richie could just barely see the white collar of Eddie’s undershirt under the button down, pulling his eyes away quickly. “Yeah, she does. Seems exactly the kind of person Bev would befriend in college.” 

“Yeah, I’m glad she’s not lonely up here,” Ben said. He sounded genuinely relieved. 

“Haystack, you are all kinds of adorable, you know that?”

Ben gave him a funny little look. “What do you mean by that?” 

“You are so helpless and so obvious, I love it.” He patted Ben’s knee fondly. “If only we all could reach the levels of emotional vulnerability you must subject yourself to on the reg, the world would be a nicer, more heart-on-sleeve kinda place.” 

“Does anything that comes out of your mouth ever make a single iota of fucking sense?” Eddie asked. 

“You tell me.” Richie then patted Eddie’s knee for good measure, quickly replacing his hand in his own lap. 

Most of the show was truly a little lost on Eddie, but he couldn’t be happier to be there. He did, to his credit, recognize what pieces were Bev’s and made sure to report to Richie and Ben when they came up, and while he wasn’t sure at all whether they were impressive in the fashion world, he was just impressed that she made that shit. He was a little in awe of her, and seeing her come out on the catwalk like she was made for it only made him prouder. Richie had cheered, and Eddie had had to quiet him quickly, realizing this was not exactly fashion show etiquette, in a room chock full of college students or otherwise. 

Bev absolutely glowed, but Eddie expected nothing less from her. Her designs and her walk of fame had come on relatively early, and while Eddie did his best to pay attention, his mind set to wandering. Kay walked once and Eddie noticed Richie tear his attention away from his laser focus on, of all things, the chandelier, for a moment to watch. 

He did look a little stupid, but frustratingly endearingly so, clueless in his stupid shirt that looked like it came from the estate sale of some eccentric former street hot dog vendor. He looked put together in only a way that Richie could, as if the whole outfit was conceptual, and the concept was nerdy without really giving half a fuck. Eddie had been trying to hide the cuffs of his trousers under his chair, a little embarrassed about the stupid pinned up hem, but Richie wore the flood pants look proudly. 

Stanley had had to coax him out of his hotel room, reassuring him that he did, in fact, not look like a little pansy, and Eddie had been wildly swinging back and forth between feeling vastly insecure and maybe just a little nice. He did look nice, and a couple other of Bev’s friends had reassured him that he did look nice, Patty had even said so, but the simple matter of being a little far outside his comfort zone kept that anxiety of looking like a fool nagging at the back of his mind. 

_ Malibu Barbie’s little gay friend. _

He bobbed his foot, shrugging it off. Richie hadn’t meant any harm by it, and honestly, it was kinda funny. More of a cut to Ken himself than Eddie. But he held to his point that Richie looked like just as much of an idiot. 

Richie did look a little off since Eddie walked in on him in the bathroom with Bill, hoping he hadn’t cut off an important conversation. He could feel how antsy he was just sitting this close to him, foot bobbing here and there, arms crossing and uncrossing, having trouble focusing and continually returning to the chandelier. 

Deciding to give analyzing Richie a break for a second, Eddie looked around for the rest of their group. He found Bill and Mike among the small sea of people in attendance, spotting Bill with his chin propped up in his hand, clearly also feeling the length of the show draw out without Beverly there for any of them to cheer on. Richie had started to shift uneasily in his chair, adjusting positions every few seconds. 

Beverly had mentioned some afterparty at the apartment of some senior she knew, and while Eddie was, admittedly, dreading having to meet any other groups of new people tonight, it would be nice to be in some environment with everyone where they didn’t have to sit down. Especially after the few weeks spent with his mother and the first two months of this semester, Eddie needed an outlet. This whole thing couldn’t have come at a better time. 

He’d been just starting to fear he was losing it when it came time to pack up and catch a plane to O’Hare. 

The boys and Patty found each other once the lights finally came back up, the casual viewers and supporters filing out of the ballroom as family and close friends stood close to the doors to the little backstage area. Eddie kept popping up on his toes to try and see if the door was opening, Richie continually putting a hand on his shoulder to push him back down flat footed to tease him. 

“I can't help it, you look like a little meerkat.” 

Eddie had done his best to ignore him, instead working with Stanley to try and pick out her red hair from the string of student designers and models streaming out of the door. 

“There she is— behind the guy in the brown jacket,” Stan said, pointing as he spotted her. He waved, and Eddie called her name, the others quickly joining in. Beverly stopped for only a moment, deftly dodging the man in the brown blazer with a wince and heading straight for them. 

Richie started clapping, whooping for her as she approached, and the others joined in shortly, Beverly giving them only a little curtsy before trying to quiet them down a little bit. “Were you guys absolutely bored to tears?” 

“Not to  _ tears _ ,” Richie said, receiving a punch in the arm from Mike. 

“That was awesome, Bev,” he said, always sweet, and Beverly beamed at him. 

“Do you guys wanna get the fuck out of here? I’m ready for a drink. Where’s Kay?” 

Kay appeared in time to lead them back out onto the streets of Chicago, walking them briskly through the cool March air to a set of apartment buildings and cramming them into the elevator once inside. Eddie squeezed out beside Beverly and Bill, following Kay to a thrumming apartment on the corner of the hall. The air felt like it was thumping, colored light leaking out into the hall when someone opened the door to let Kay and her new entourage inside, the host cheerily greeting Beverly as well. She didn’t bother to introduce anyone at the door, but Eddie was fairly quickly marched around and made to chat with several different friends of Beverly’s whose names failed him almost immediately. It was stuffy inside, packed much more tightly than the reception hall had been, but Eddie was glad at least to be moving around. He lost track of the whole group at one point or another, managing to at least stick with someone familiar for the brief time they were there. 

Richie had disappeared and reappeared several times, flitting through partygoers, making friends. Eddie was reminded briefly of him at Julie’s, a guy he knew thought a lot less of himself than did everyone else, able to charm his way into friendship with complete strangers. Richie really didn’t get it, clearly did not understand that not everyone could work a crowd like that, could have everyone at a party knowing his name and cheering him on within an hour. 

His tie had loosened throughout the night, the knot hanging a few inches too low, top button undone, hair curling from the humidity in the room, limbs just about everywhere as he skirted through this living room of some random apartment. All he had to do was flash one million dollar smile and wisecrack his way through a conversation and he was well embedded in the hearts of everyone in the room. Eddie felt lucky, perched on a windowsill next to Bill for a moment, lucky to be here, lucky to know these people. He wondered if anyone else in that apartment had anyone with them they’d known since they were eleven, let alone six anyones. 

Eddie was just lucky one of his six anyones was Richie Tozier. 

“Are you two tripping over here or something?” 

Eddie jumped when Kay seemed to appear out of nowhere, her hair now pulled back, a bag of pretzel sticks in hand. She offered one to Eddie, a hand over his heart. 

Bill gave Eddie a little look. “N-not unless you know something we d-don’t.” 

Kay squinted, moving directly into Eddie’s personal space and leaning into his face. Eddie leaned back slightly until he felt his head hit the window behind him. “Can I help you?” 

“Your pupils were gigantic a second ago, dude, I swear to god.” 

Eddie stared back at her, frozen for an instant, mouth half open, and was saved when Richie, approaching silently from behind, snatched the bag from Kay’s hand and backed up quickly as she reached for it. 

“Hey—” 

“What’s this little party going on over here all about?” He stole a handful of pretzels before handing the bag back to Kay. 

She lifted a shoulder. “I was bugging these two.” She offered Eddie another pretzel, which he silently declined. “I just saw Beverly in the kitchen, I’m pretty sure she’s about ready to go. There’s some prick here the two of us aren’t too fond of and I think she wants a little more time with you guys outside all this chaos.” 

All three of them straightened their spines incrementally. 

“Which p-prick?” 

Eddie started to stand off the windowsill, looking toward the kitchen. “I can go round everybody up, I was thinking of heading out soon anyway.” 

“Tom Rogan,” Kay added, glancing around as well. “I’d point him out to you guys, but I don’t see him.” 

“Are you gonna stick around here?” Richie asked. 

Kay smiled. “Yeah, I can handle myself, but you haven’t seen the last of me yet, don’t worry, sweetheart.” 

Eddie quickly made his way to the kitchen to track down Beverly. 

It was decided, quickly and unanimously, that it was a fantastic idea to clamber onto the roof of Beverly’s dorm building. Kay had decided to hang around the afterparty for a little longer, and Patty, wanting to give Stanley a little time with the rest of them, decided to head off to bed. By then it wasn’t exactly early anyway, and their little crowd walked her back to the hotel, Bill and Richie giving Stanley a good natured hard time about walking her upstairs to kiss her goodnight. 

Richie felt like a live wire, energized from all the excitement of the show and a drink or two at the party, thrilled to bits about the chance to get a good view of the city with the people he just so happened to love most in the world. He’d been the one to suggest it, and while there had been a few initial qualms from Eddie and Mike, both of them not the biggest fans of heights 

_ “It’s not a fear of heights, Rich, it’s a fear of falling,”  _ he could hear Eddie now,

Bev had reassured them that there was nothing perilous about getting up there, there were stairs they could take, and they were well on their way. 

Richie had gotten up first, pushing through the door and spreading his arms in the bitter wind, hair whipping around his head. Stanley came up behind him, swearing lightly and budging Richie out of the way so the rest of them could spill forth. It was bitter cold, Eddie and Beverly the only ones with coats, but Richie could hardly pay it any mind. He snagged Stanley’s hand, who had reached for Mike behind him, Bill, Ben, Eddie, and finally Beverly, all of them racing up to the edge of the building, faced with a black and gold dotted skyline, wind howling around their ears. 

It was Bill who had started yelling first, screaming with wild abandon and some ferocious kind of joy into the wind, hardly able to be heard, but Ben was right after him, all of them falling in suit, screaming into silent nothingness in the black of the night, lit by one flickering yellow light above the door back down to the stairwell. Throats sore, they broke their line when Beverly rushed up behind Bill and tackled him around the middle, hardly budging him and instead being swung around like they were dancing, and then they were. Bill took her hands and started jogging her around the rooftop, laughter drowned out by the roar of the wind, but Richie was right behind them, immediately swinging Stanley into a deft little turn and catching him from nearly tripping. Before long, Mike cut in and stole Bill away from Beverly, who grabbed immediately for Eddie, nearly immediately tripping over himself. Ben saved him from face planting and they laughed, silent again, all seen and not heard, rather felt. Mike dipped a shocked Bill low enough that the ends of his hair nearly brushed the ground and brought him right back up, tears from laughter streaking his cheeks. Ben took Richie, Mike Eddie, Beverly Stanley, and so on, all of them grasping at each other and turning each other about, lost and found in the cold March night. 

Richie was floating, drifting on clouds and sheer delight, everything coming to a hard stop when Eddie crashed into his chest, all sound, wind included, dying for several seconds as he held him like they were ballroom dancing, the lights seeming to dim around them for one precious little instant, then the wind came crashing back into his ears, Beverly’s voice barely audible as she waved him toward the door, realizing he and Eddie were the last two on the roof, the rest having started back inside. Hardly thinking, Richie tipped Eddie’s head forward and kissed him on the forehead, dashing away before Eddie could balk and chase after him. He nearly collided with him from behind seconds later in the stairwell, the door swinging shut behind them and allowing normal sound to return, the stairwell filled with exhausted breathing and lingering laughter. Eddie said nothing, merely giving Richie’s back a little shove in retaliation as they clambered back down together, coming out on a fire escape and properly reentering the building through a window on Beverly’s floor. 

Minutes later saw the seven of them all sprawled about her bed, desk, floor: red faced, drained, feeling finally put back together again. They talked idly, on and off, no one wanting to get up, no one wanting to leave, no one wanting to break the lazy circle they’d fallen into, draped over each other and any surface that would hold them. Richie’s head rested next to Eddie’s thigh on Beverly’s orange and purple rug on the floor, his feet in Bill’s lap where he sat up against her desk, Bev and Stan leaning on each other in her bed, Mike and Ben in the desk chair and on the desk respectively. 

Their voices all died eventually, worn from screaming over the wind and cackling like a coven on the rooftop, from the softer conversation that followed, Beverly’s last little

_ “God, I missed you guys. I miss you all the time.” _

earning six sighs and nods of agreement, implicit understanding. Richie missed them a little even right there, missed the time they wouldn’t have when everyone started to file one by one out of Chicago the next afternoon, pre-missed them. This. He closed his eyes against it, finding them throbbing, willing him to fall asleep where he was, when the bed creaked, and Stanley stood. 

They trickled out slowly, no one really wanting to, but with a promise of a breakfast all together the next morning in the hotel. Stanley went first, followed closely by a tired Eddie, kindly declining Richie’s offer to buy him a drink at the hotel bar. Bill and Mike went next, waiting for Ben and Richie to finally work up the courage to say goodnight. 

Richie held tight to Bev for a little longer than he usually would, soul happier for it when they were trekking silently back through the cool night to the hotel. The other three left him at the bar, wanting a nightcap, weary but still buzzing with residual energy he needed to burn off before he had any chance of sleeping. 

Whisky neat, though fairly sexy in concept, was a little gross to choke down in practice. Richie was really barely sipping at it, the bartender still eyeing him with suspicion, having questioned the validity of his ID at first. 

The bar was lit with warm red and gold lights and surrounded by a few soft padded booths and a little conversation pit, all set off to the back of the lobby. Despite the hour, there were still a number of patrons besides Richie, so he really wasn’t drinking alone. A gaggle of middle aged women chatted in a booth behind him, a pair of guys around his age on the stools near his. He’d tried to strike up conversation with the bartender, a little hoarse, but he hadn’t seemed quite into it, merely serving Richie his drinking and moving on with his night. And that was alright. As much as Richie would have loved to pour his heart out in an empty, dimply lit bar while the bartender nodded understandingly and wiped the same spot on the counter over and over again like in the movies, this worked too. 

He was allowed a moment with his thoughts, usually a frightening concept, but considering the high mood he’d been riding since leaving the show, it wasn’t so bad. Chicago wasn’t so bad. He could stand getting a job up here, despite it being so miserable cold and windy this time of year, but Beverly was here. And being close to one of them was so much better than being seven hours away from any of them at the closest. He liked Kay, too, he thought, she seemed to get his number fairly quickly and he hadn’t been mad about it. Paid for his first drink, which was nice, he’d gotten her one in return, it was nice. Even exchange, but something he didn’t want to put hope into. Maybe it was her hair, (maybe, honestly, her name,) but she reminded him a little of Kate, and he was worried that was influencing his feelings toward her at least a little. 

Bill he was still worried about, but seeing him finally loosen up on the roof gave him a little hope. He’d still try to get a word in with him before they all broke up across the country again, but Richie was feeling better about it. Bill was an adult. He was coping. They all were. As much as he didn’t want to see him fall into some drug addled haze, he understood to a certain degree. 

Something Stanley had said in Bev’s room was nagging at him, though. 

_ “Something happened to us when we were kids, didn’t it? There’s a reason we’re still this close, I think we survived something together.”  _

Richie couldn’t knock the feeling that he was right, that maybe there was something there bigger than Bowers. He flexed his hand, palm sore. Stanley said that Patty caught him talking in his sleep sometimes, that he said things that worried her. He hadn’t elaborated. 

Not wanting to get too caught up in memories that never seemed to come when Richie called upon them, locked away somewhere, he found himself honing in on the conversation between the two guys next to him, unable to ignore them after a moment. 

“She’s always been a little bit of a cocktease, but you’ve gotta agree this whole thing is a little much.” 

Richie made a face that had nothing to do with the sour taste of his whisky. He turned his head slowly to the offending voice, finding the back of a dark head, the guy not facing him, wearing a casual brown suit coat. The other man next to him nodded in agreement, but Richie didn’t catch what he replied with. 

Maybe there was some merit into trying to dig into whatever repressed memories his mind may be hiding from him. Sometimes anything was better than listening to two jackasses with nothing of any real substance to them.

“Did you see her dodge me when she came out from backstage?” 

“Yeah, I saw that.” 

“Little bitch.” 

Richie couldn’t help but listen in then, perking up slightly. He kept his eyes on his drink, watching the light swirl amber in the bottom of his glass, not moving to listen, not looking to make sure it wasn’t obvious he was listening. 

They went on, the man in the brown jacket snorting into his glass before taking a loud sip. “And the fucking pack of bodyguards with her she went running to.” 

“I don’t know if that was about you, Tom.” 

“Bullshit.” 

Richie felt his stomach go cold. His throat refused to swallow his last sip, leaving it burning on his tongue. 

“I get enough shit from Kay fucking McCall always trying to get in my fucking way, but now she brings a bunch of guys with her just to make me jealous.”

“She’s probably fucking them,” the other man agreed. 

Richie had always had a certain problem with keeping his mouth shut. Once he got his whisky down, this was no exception. “And there’s probably a reason she’s not fucking  _ you _ , Tommy boy.” He didn’t look up after saying it, feeling like someone had turned his stool into a Sit ‘N Spin and was wheeling him around with reckless abandon. 

He heard Tom shift, braving a look at him, worried the sudden coiled fury in his chest that came with the realization of who the hell he was talking about would make him do something stupid. 

But he only saw something stupid. Some stupid looking, middle parted, furious faced motherfucker. Mean looking bugger. Richie looked him over as cooly as he could, swirling his whisky in his glass, not daring to move beyond that. He wasn’t one to throw the first punch, in fact trying to avoid getting physical as much as he could even with that big mouth of his, but he’d never been in a situation with someone spewing such vile shit about one of his friends. About Beverly. 

“And who the fuck are you?” 

“Typically, if you’re going to be sitting around a bar complaining about a woman and calling her a  _ cocktease _ , one might infer that she, in fact, doesn’t actually want to fuck you. It’s actually fairly simple if you ask me.”

“I asked you a fucking question.” 

“Richie,” he said, not blinking for a moment, eyes locked on him. Richie had always been told he had a very punchable face. He’d never seen anyone else with that particular quality until tonight. 

“Are you trying to make me out to be some kind of idiot here, Richie?” 

“I don’t think you need my help with that, buddy boy.” Richie felt sick. He felt like he was boiling over slightly, trying not to imagine the fact that Beverly had clearly had to deal with this creep in some capacity before this and that he would still be hanging around here when the rest of them left. 

Tom’s friend put a firm hand on his arm, holding him back when he shifted on his stool and made to get up, settling back with a huff like a bull. “I think you should watch your fucking mouth.” 

The ladies in the booth had ceased talking, each of their eyes trained on the slight commotion at the bar. Richie hadn’t moved a muscle, glass set firmly on the bar. He could see the bartender out of the corner of his eye, wiping a glass, watching them closely. He really should watch his mouth. He really should. But the day Richie Tozier watched his mouth was the day hell froze over. “I think you should waddle your tiny little dick home and leave her the fuck alone, man, but you’re not gonna listen to me. I might put in a good word for you, though, I’m sure she’d love that little nickname you’ve come up for her, that’ll get her panties on the ground in a fucking second, lemme tell ya.” 

The bartender intervened when Tom fought to stand up again, throwing a thick arm in his way and telling his friend to get him under control or get him out. Richie, while feeling in the moment like he could have taken him if he needed to, was honestly a little glad not to have to. But he wasn’t gonna stop there. 

“You’re like, comically evil, dude,” he said around the bartender, who threw him a look which Richie ignored. He laughed. “I swear to God, I like to try and see the good in everybody, but you look like some blockhead who just clambered right out of some stupid fucking comic book—” 

Richie ducked when Tom jerked toward him, his friend having to fully restrain him then. “You little rat faced son of a  _ bitch— _ ” 

The bartender ordered the two of them out, the ladies in their booth shrinking back for a moment and looking between each other frantically, and Richie did his best to hold his ground, thinking (maybe bravely, maybe stupidly, he wasn’t really sure where that line was at the moment) that he was holding it for Bev, at the risk of his own face. What was a new pair of glasses, anyway? 

It looked like they were going to go, Richie escaping by the skin of his teeth and turning back to his glass, trying to keep his hands from shaking, when he felt something slimy and hot slap the back of his neck. He flinched, the bartender barking again at Tom for that little move, and Richie looked back over his shoulder, finding him looking bitterly smug with a little dot of spit still hanging on his lower lip. 

Against better judgements, Richie held his gaze for a moment, and blew him a little kiss. 

“That one you can take home with you, big guy.” 

He had one second to turn around and face his drink before he felt fingers tear through the back of his hair, seeing his eyes go wide in the mirror behind the bottles of liquor and only having an instant to squeeze them shut before Tom slammed his face into the bar with a  _ crack _ . 

There was really no game plan. But Richie did end up on the sixth floor of the hotel, unsure wether it was his own doing or dumb luck. His brain felt like it was trying to slowly escape his skull, pulsing dully. His glasses were absolutely broken, but he couldn’t exactly get a good look at the extent of the damage himself. 

Knocking on Eddie’s door was nothing short of a hail Mary, but there was no fucking way he was going to bother anyone into taking him to an urgent care tonight. Not when everyone had had such a fantastic fucking night, not when Beverly had nothing to worry about. And shouldn’t. 

This one was sort of his bad, he had to clean up this mess himself. 

Maybe with a little help from a friend. 

Richie knocked twice, heavy and thunking, and immediately slumped against the doorframe, body begging him to get down onto the ground and quit this quite ridiculous act of trying to remain upright. 

Arms suddenly too tired to knock, Eddie’s name was ready on his tongue in a whine when the door whipped open, nearly pitching him face first into the hotel room. Richie swore, Eddie made some sound very close to a scream, and Richie had to confront from the sudden realization that no, he did not look too good, in the way Eddie turned white as a sheet. 

He hadn’t been quite trying to sleep. Eddie knew there was no way he was going to sleep anytime soon without medical assistance (and he did carry melatonin with him for this express purpose), but he wasn’t quite committed to it anyway. Riding the high of the night, laying still fully dressed on top of his nicely made hotel bed, head tipped back to examine the ceiling, clock radio blasting. 

There had been no real reason for him not to get up and go bother someone else in the hotel, no reason not to beg Bill to sneak outside and go see what Chicago after dark had to offer, no reason not to sneak over to Beverly’s dorm and take up her offer to stay the night there just to squeeze in a little more time with her. 

No reason not to join Richie at the bar for a nightcap, really. No reason at all. 

Eddie jolted at the knock at his door. He sat up, smoothing down the hair at the back of his head where his pillow had fluffed it up, and stared at the door. He swung his socked feet to the floor and rushed over, standing briefly on his toes to look through the peephole and finding nothing but a dark bent head. 

Eddie was fairly sure it was Richie when he dropped the deadbolt and pulled the door open, but the bloody bashed in face where Richie’s usually was was not expected. He swore fluently, Richie’s hands flying up to his face to shush him as Eddie frantically took him by the shoulders, scared by how much weight he put on him immediately. They bickered there briefly, Eddie in a tisy about what in God’s fucking name happened and Richie insisting he would be alright if only Eddie would be quiet, for fucks sake. 

“You look like you got fucking  _ curb stomped _ —” 

“I wouldn’t have any fucking teeth left if I got curb stomped—  _ ow— _ ”

“Jesus fucking Christ in fucking heaven, Richie, this is bad.” 

It was bad. Eddie needed to clean off the rapidly drying blood from his face and take off the broken glasses to accurately assess  _ how _ bad, but he could tell it was significantly far up on the not-good side of the spectrum. 

“I don’t need you clutching your pearls about this, Eds, I really gotta set this fucking nose or it’s gonna stick that way.” Or was that what his mom said about funny faces when he was a kid? He couldn’t quite recall. 

“Clutching my— sit the fuck down.” 

Head pounding, a frantic stress headache already pressing at his temples, Eddie manhandled him to the bed, sitting him down and rushing to go shut the door, coming back to him immediately. Worry twisted in his stomach, throat dry as he pulled off Richie’s glasses and set them on the comforter, looking a little crumpled and sad, and smoothed his sweaty hair back from his forehead, trying to keep from sounding panicked. 

“ _ Fuck _ , Richie—” 

“I know I’m hideous, Doc, but do you have a diagnosis on the broken nose?”

Eddie abandoned him for only a moment to rush to the bathroom, snatching a washcloth and dampening it with warm water. He directed Richie to turn sideways on the bed so he could sit in front of him, ears numb to the clock radio still singing on like nothing was wrong. “Just hold still, dumbfuck.” 

_ —you took me by surprise, I didn’t realize, that you were laughing— _

Richie seemed to be as still as he could, flinching when Eddie dabbed close to the bridge of his nose or his brow, hand only a little unsteady. Their breath mixed this close, Eddie wondering distantly how the fuck he ended up with Richie in this state in his bed at this hour. 

Maybe this was karma for feeling so lucky to be one of his best friends earlier. 

“Are you gonna tell me what the fuck happened?” 

Richie’s voice came out muffled, eyes shut, and Eddie quickly pulled the rag from his face. 

“I can’t when you’re trying to suffocate me with that thing.” 

Eddie dove back in none too gently, making Richie yelp. He only felt a little bad. “You’re the one who shows up at my door fucking dizzy and bleeding all over the fucking place, don’t act all indignant now.” 

Richie shut up for a moment, breath a little labored, head looking heavy, and Eddie did his best to at least get the blood out of the way so he could get a good look at what was going on. 

“Who hit you?” Eddie lowered the rag, searching Richie’s face, finding a frightening little twinge of guilt in his eyes. “Rich.” 

“A fucking table,” Richie mumbled, not coming quite clean. He was starting to bruise around the nose, brow bone looking swollen too. Jesus Christ. 

Eddie stared at him, mouth half open. “Are you _ drunk? _ ” 

“I fucking wish I was, maybe my fucking face would hurt less.” 

Eddie smacked the knee Richie had bent up on the bed, making him jump. “Tell me what the  _ fuck _ happened Richie.” 

Looking down at his lap, Richie sniffed, winced, gently taking the rag from Eddie’s hand to dab at his nose, which had started to run. “Nothing unusual, big mouth got me in trouble.” Eddie silently prompted him for more, and he sighed, continuing. “Remember that Tom guy Kay mentioned?” 

“You fucking didn’t—” 

“Eddie, he was talking shit about Beverly in the bar downstairs. And he was  _ in the bar downstairs _ , which was a little fucking off, if you ask me, probably trying to find her which I don’t fucking like—”

“So you got in a fucking  _ bar fight _ over it?” 

“I didn’t get in any fucking fight, I told him off,” Richie said, running hot. Eddie could see a flare of anger in his face, frightening behind the blood and the bruising. “You should have heard him, man, it was making me fucking sick, I couldn’t sit there and not say anything.” 

“That tends to be a problem for you, yeah.” He was unable to keep from sounding a little bitter. 

“You would have done the same thing if you’d heard him,” Richie said, sounding deadly sure about it. Eddie looked him over, stomach feeling tight, blinking. Richie wet his lips, face softening slightly. “And I may have gone a little overboard and gotten my face smashed into the fucking bar, but— yeah.” 

“He  _ smashed your face— _ ” 

“He’s crazy dude, he looked actually fucking unhinged.” 

Colder worry sank into Eddie’s gut, worry over Beverly. If he was bothering her and turned that quickly into kicking the shit out of Richie, mouthing off or not— he didn’t wanna think about it. “Did-Did you call the fucking cops?” 

Richie shook his head. “The bartender offered but I just wanted to get the fuck out of there.”

“Where’d he go?” 

“He left, I don’t fucking know.” 

“Richie—” Eddie ran his hands down his face, shaking his head. “This is fucked up.” 

“Yeah, it’s fucked up.” He sniffed again, reaching out, and Eddie tensed when Richie picked at one of the pins in the hem of his pants, not saying anything about it. “I’m gonna tell Bev, I promise, but I wanna let her sleep tonight.” 

“Yeah, you have to fucking tell her he’s a fucking lunatic, she should get some restraining order or something—” 

“I don’t think it works like that, Eds,” Richie sighed, looking up at him. 

Eddie felt his heart skip funny, locked in on the look Richie was giving him. Stupid bastard got his face bashed in over sticking up for Beverly. Didn’t even hesitate. Eddie didn’t know if that was admirable or straight moronic, but he couldn’t help the little twinge of pride his heart wouldn’t let him let go of. “You’re— God, you’re a fucking idiot.” 

“Tell me something I don’t know next time, why don’t you.” 

Once the blood was clear, Eddie braved feeling up his nose, trying to properly assess whether or not it was broken. Richie toughed it out, eyes watering, one hand fisted in Eddie’s slacks. He admired him for the tough guy shtick, knowing there was no way this didn’t hurt like hell. 

“Did you just hit the table once?” 

Richie hesitated. “It took me by surprise, I may have slid back assward off the stool.”

“Well, you’re nothing if not graceful.” Richie broke a slight grin which turned quickly into a wince. “I don’t think your nose is broken, but you’re gonna lose any charm from your good looks for a couple weeks.” Richie gingerly went to touch his face, hand a little shaky, wincing when he did. Eddie moved his hands away and got up to get a fresh wash cloth, wetting it with cool water and coming back to try and get a head start on some of the swelling. “I wish I had a cold cut for you here.” 

“Are you asking me to a nice steak dinner?” 

“Yeah, in your dreams.” Richie relaxed a little when Eddie dabbed at him with the cold rag. “Did you hit your head?” 

“Not bad.” 

Eddie tipped his head forward, ignoring his protests, feeling at the back of his head and finding no lump. 

“Your shirt—  _ Eddie— _ ” Richie jerked his head up, nose suddenly bleeding again, and Eddie scrabbled to try and stop it. 

“No, don’t  _ pinch it _ keep your head even—  _ stop— _ ” He wrestled with him for a moment to just hold the rag under his nose, not wanting him to fuck up the bridge anymore than it already was. “You don’t tip your head back, you can choke on the blood.” 

“Thanks Doc.” Richie’s voice came out stuffy and nasally, and Eddie found himself laughing lightly. Richie blinked up at him, joining in after a second. “What’s up, Doc?” 

“Stop talking,” Eddie begged, looking him over again with a twitchy smile. The second button was now undone on his shirt, tie having slid down a little further, and Eddie quietly undid it and pulled it off, setting it next to Richie’s crumpled glasses. 

Richie obliged for only a moment, holding the rag under his nose, fixing Eddie with a stupid doe eyed look that made his stomach jolt. Eddie paused, blinking, taking him in.

“How’ve you been?” Richie asked, quiet, voice a little hoarse. 

His hair was a wreck, and Eddie found himself wanting to tuck it back behind his big stupid ears. He did the same to himself instead, suddenly needing something to do with his hands. “How am I?”

“Yeah.” 

“I’ve been okay.” 

“How was Christmas?” 

Eddie swallowed, looking down at where Richie’s free hand was pressed into the white comforter, staining it with a little blood. He wet his lips, trying not to think of the car ride back to Queens. “Business as usual.” He brushed a stray fuzz off Richie’s knee. “How was yours?” 

“I saw my ex girlfriend,” Richie admitted, making Eddie look up. “Found out she’s a lesbian.” 

Eddie blinked, smiling sympathetically. “Ouch.” 

Richie laughed. “Yeah, I know.”

“How does that work?” 

“I don’t fucking know, dude, we dated in high school. Nobody has their shit straight in high school.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed, swallowing again, throat dry. A commercial came on the radio. “Home’s good?” 

“For the most part.” 

“How are your parents?” 

“Not entirely happy to have their son back home when they thought they’d finally gotten rid of him, I’ll tell you that.” 

Eddie gave him a look. He’d spent enough time at the Tozier household to know otherwise. “There’s no way that’s true, dude, come on.” 

“No, I know, but they’re definitely disappointed.” He sniffed, making a face. “How’s school?” 

“School,” he said, flatly. 

Richie laughed. “I told you you’d hate it.” 

“It is dry as shit, dude, you got that right.” 

“I think it— yeah, it stopped bleeding.” Richie pulled the rag away, stained, looking considerably calmer. While he wished it was under better circumstances, Eddie had to admit, he was glad to have a second alone with him. He did miss him, he did hate having him stuck all the way across the country, he wished he had more opportunities to come see him in Boston. It might have scared him a little, how much he missed Richie sometimes. 

“You feeling okay?” Eddie’s voice had come down a little, quiet, tending to the ease of the moment. 

“How’d you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” 

Eddie shoved lightly at his chest, snorting. “You’re such a fucking martyr.” 

“I have a headache, but I think I’ll live.” 

Eddie looked him over again, keeping himself still. It was nice, even among the bloody wash cloths, just sitting on the bed with him, radio crooning, both of them with one leg tucked up on the bed and one foot on the floor. Richie was still wearing his sneakers, Eddie in his socks. It felt like his ears were buzzing, his heart pulsing steadily, thoughts acting up. He cleared his throat. “I should really go get you some ice.” He started to get up, feeling Richie’s hand fall on his shin and stop him. He looked down at it for a moment, big paw of his covering a good amount of surface area, Eddie’s throat a little dry, looking up to meet Richie’s low gaze and finding him shaking his head lightly, mouth quirked up at one corner. For once he didn’t say a word.

God, he was absolutely going to have two black eyes come morning. Eddie could already see two little sweeps of violet under Richie’s eyes, different from the dark circles he was usually sporting, and Eddie realized he hadn’t been this close to his face without his glasses in years. And Richie was grinning despite it, bruised and clearly hurting and  _ grinning _ , that right eye squinting in the way it did when he really beamed, eyelashes thick and heavy, eyes looking bluer now ringed with what was surely not going to be pretty in the cruel light of day, lips pink from the roughness of the hotel wash cloth Eddie had been scrubbing at his bloody face with, now finally clean and Richie had quieted, looking up at him through those eyelashes and a damp lock of hair that fell over his forehead in a jet black Clark Kent kind of curl, gazing at him  _ grinning _ at him like Eddie was some kind of savior, like he wasn’t just his good ol’ buddy with a basic knowledge of first aid and like he had all the answers in the world and Eddie took the split second of quiet to wonder what his mouth tasted like and took the next to find out. 

He was careful as he could be on that particular impulse to fit his nose against Richie’s cheek so as not to hurt him, colliding with him a little harder than intended and catching an uncomfortable click of teeth when he clashed into that smile. 

_ “Ow—” _

Richie only recoiled for a split second, Eddie feeling a petrifying surge in his chest at the thought that he’d only caused him more pain and that Richie was going to put a stop to it but it was gone in an instant, Richie’s hands gripping his face as if in apology that he’d dare back off even for a second, bashed in nose or not, and Eddie felt Richie’s mouth soften and open up to him and he was suddenly searching for purchase somewhere in the front of Richie’s shirt. 

He’d honestly expected a twinge of iron from the blood, at least a lingering hint of cigarettes or cucumber sandwiches from earlier that evening, but all he got was Richie. Richie wincing and twitching his nose, forcing out a little breath through it that couldn’t have been comfortable but not daring to stop, Richie taking the initiative and fitting Eddie’s bottom lip between his to pull it into his mouth. Eddie’s hands just went somewhere, just went around him, just went generally  _ please come closer _ and Richie did. His head lost all weight to it when Richie’s thumbs brushed over the shells of his ears, slipping back into his hair and trailing down to the back of his neck, pinkies dipping below the collar like he already had him mapped out. Maybe he did. With the way his thumbs pressed exactly below the corners of his jaw, palms fitting into the curve of the top of his spine like they were made to, maybe he did. 

His heart felt too big for his chest, some elephant on a rampage in a chain link fence zoo, his breath competing for space and losing out. Gold spots danced behind his closed eyelids, pleasant static the only thought daring to pass through his mind. He gasped at him, breathless, still in mild disbelief but shifting forward into the present and finally finding a place for his hands on Richie’s biceps, digging his thumbs in as he felt Richie’s weight shift dizzyingly toward him, chests fitting together. He couldn’t keep track suddenly of who was touching who, whose hands went where, because there was another feeling of teeth that was all intention and no accident and Eddie played right back into it, nipping back at Richie’s bottom lip like it was completely natural and feeling a savage rush of satisfaction when he hummed back into his mouth.

Richie went down and Eddie went up, slipping his arms up over his shoulders and linking them briefly behind his neck before deciding his hair was more interesting, deciding he wanted to sink his fingers into his curls and so glad when he did. So glad when Richie  _ sighed _ , working Eddie’s mouth open gently with his own, fingers flexing and relaxing somewhere around his waist and making him feel like he was tipping into delirium. He noticed distantly that Richie was trembling, that his whole body was thrumming, vibrating like bass strings, hands shaking terribly where he held him. 

It took Eddie precious seconds to recognize the heat suddenly slicking up his top lip, the salt and iron on his tongue, to recognize that Richie was bleeding into his mouth. His eyes flicked open, actually feeling his eyelashes brush the crest of Richie’s cheekbone he was so close, and his brain decided before he did to pull back. 

“Your nose— your nose is bleeding again.” His voice didn’t even sound like his own, his hands looked too sure to be his hands when he reached to cup Richie’s jaw and hold his head in place for a moment to get a better look at him. Eddie’s head was spinning, Richie’s pupils were blown so big there was hardly a ring of blue iris left surrounding them, but more concerning was the blood, bright and red and fresh. 

_ “Fuck—” _

“Fuck, fuck it looks swollen—” 

Richie was scrambling for the red stained rag on the comforter, hardly able to get a grip on it with how unsteady his hands were, finally managing to mash it up under his nose to try and stop the flow. Eddie took over on instinct, hand going to the back of his head to hold him steady, breath coming quick. Thought didn’t come to him, wouldn’t, he was lost in muscle memory, wrapped up completely in the exact moment and nothing leading up to or away from it. 

“Here—”

And suddenly Richie was dabbing at  _ his _ face for him, cleaning up whatever blood had made it onto Eddie’s face during the mess of all that, Eddie knowing for a fact he couldn’t see anything and he was the one who’d had his head slammed into a table not a half hour ago and somehow, Eddie couldn’t even be bothered. Eddie had someone else’s blood smeared on his face, it had gotten into his fucking  _ mouth _ , and all he could do after a moment was laugh because here was Richie, cleaning  _ him _ up, laugh, feeling it rise like carbonation in his chest and bubble over into his mouth, spilling out. 

And Richie, the bastard, understanding suddenly how little Eddie cared about a little blood, lowered the rag, checked him over to make doubly sure, and dove right back in to kiss him again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song mentioned:  
> Laughing - The Guess Who
> 
> (it is also important for me to include the fact that I did listen to Tame Impala's The Less I Know The Better while writing the last sequence in this chapter. the vibes were just right)
> 
> delightful [fanart](https://cranberryofficial.tumblr.com/post/636522752789069824/the-way-i-had-to-color-this-in-highlighter-and) of Stan and Patty by [@cranberryofficial!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/cranberryofficial)


	14. CHICAGO PART 3: CHOCOLATE MILK AIN'T GONNA FIX THIS ONE, HONEY

**18 MARCH 1997**

**2:08 AM**

Richie jammed his glasses back on at the exact wrong time. 

It might be about time to invest in contacts. 

He’d barely been able to see anything from the moment Eddie took his glasses off to clean him up. Guard down, vision smudged, head throbbing, barely catching the look in Eddie’s eyes as if from behind a veil in the quiet wired moments before he’d felt him kiss into his grin. 

Saying it took him by surprise may have been a bit of an understatement. Richie hadn’t even been sure what was going on for the first three seconds, he’d just felt a stab of pain jolt through his face and had to recover quickly, having discovered what might have been his dreams coming true all over his stunned face, and fuck, had he chased it. After that, for precious seconds—maybe a minute, he wasn’t sure, time seemed to screech to a halt—he didn’t  _ have _ to see shit, he didn’t have to be seen, Eddie was kissing him clumsily like he’d hardly ever done it before and Richie was more than ready to give him a pointer or two. 

Then the nosebleed, then the little seconds of scrambling to clean up that wreck in the middle, the trying to squint and focus and make sure there wasn’t regret written all over Eddie’s face, the not finding it, the diving back in. Richie’s brain had gone supernova, full dying star, fizzling like a fresh cracked Coke can in the first days of August, everything gone gone gone good good good heart running marathons around his rib cage head stuffed stiff with endorphins and finally finally finally

and the slightest tug on his collar. The hint, the  _ hey, c’mere _ , the  _ maybe in this instant I’m okay with this, Rich, I want more _ . The moment Eddie had started to lean back, the second there was a door opening, had come the panic. Eddie passed him a silent invitation and Richie shut the door in his face, an excuse out of his mouth like a minnow darting out of the jaws of a piranha and Richie had fumbled for his broken glasses and seen for the first time since entering the room, jamming them back onto his face like putting up a ramshackle barrier between the two of them. 

_There_ was the look. Devastation sinking quickly into humiliation, a few dark hairs around his head that displaced like a halo, Eddie realizing this whole thing was off limits from the start, kaleidoscoped through a broken lens, and Richie was out before there was a chance to do something they’d really regret. Out, down the hall without direction, away. 

Richie was bleeding again in the hallway, wiping his nose on his bare wrist and swearing, heat seeming to come out his ears. He was unsteady on his feet, still trembling, realizing a moment too late he was headed to the dead end of the hallway and having to go back, traitorously passing the door he’d let fall behind him to get to the escape of the elevator. It was a retreat, he slunk through the hall, paranoid. He couldn’t even place his finger on the specifics of it. Just God, if there was a God, don’t let anyone see him. If he so much as found Stan shuffling to the end of the hall in his hotel bathrobe and slippers for ice he might break down. His thoughts whirred around in a blender in his head, disbelief and exhilaration and a sick, sick kind of nauseating fear. He went cold for a split second before he found the elevator, worried as if he was lost, rationality returning to him. Can’t get lost in this straightforward of a hotel. The only way to go here was down. 

The mirror in the elevator glared at him, ugly and battered and angry, Richie for the first time getting a good look at how bad he looked. Eyes blackening, blood smeared across his upper lip, a drop falling onto the collar of his shirt, one lens of his glasses done for, the bridge bent. His hair stuck up funny on one side, and his skinny chest started rising and falling rapidly when he realized that was from Eddie, that was from searching hands asking permission to come closer. Richie closed his eyes against it, rushing out of the elevator when it dinged on his floor, running from the reflection. 

He prayed Ben was asleep, fumbling for his key with still shaking hands and fitting it into the lock. His stomach clenched when he found the lights on, though there was no sign of Ben. Richie stood in the doorway for a moment, brain flickering, before ducking inside and letting the door fall closed behind him. Ben might have gone out looking for him, he’d be back in a minute. Richie needed to clean up, (vomit?), smoke, get in bed. He’d see about the vomiting part. If he didn’t get nicotine in his system soon to chill himself out he was absolutely gonna blow chunks, anxiety already settling like sandstone in his gut. 

None too gently starting on the cleaning up part, Richie tried to turn off his thoughts and scrub at his face with cold water. He foamed toothpaste at the mouth when he tried to scour the red wine and salt taste of Eddie’s mouth off his teeth. He raked his fingers through his hair to try and settle it, catching another glimpse of himself in the mirror as he yanked at a tender spot in the back where Tom had grabbed him. Panting, mouth stinging with mint, he noticed his eyebrow had split a little, there was an angry slash across the bridge of his nose where his glasses had cut into his face. He looked scrawny and scared, eyes big, face screwed up, and the image dissolved in a moment when he swiped through the stream of water from the faucet and tossed it carelessly at the mirror to obscure the image, sick of looking at it. He turned the water off and headed back into the bedroom, tossing through his bag for his cigarettes. 

_ Running away again, Rich. Like a scared kid.  _

Cigarette, do not throw up. Cigarette, do not throw up. He swallowed down bile, losing hope for a second, thinking maybe he’d not brought a fresh pack with him, but there it was, the little white and red carton hiding under a pair of jeans. He tore it open and thumbed one out, grabbing his lighter from his jacket pocket and heading for the window. It took him a minute to get it open, swearing, biting down on the end of the cigarette with clenched teeth, and he nearly twisted his arm wrenching the lock and popping the window open at the bottom. He pushed the screen up, tensing in the sudden cold rush of unwelcome outside air. He cupped his hands, struggling to light the damn thing. Gusts of biting wind kept snuffing out the flame before it could ever hope to meet the cigarette, let alone catch. All he was succeeding in was burning the tips of his fingers, swearing around the cigarette and frantically shaking his hands out like a madman. 

It caught unexpectedly as Richie had been sucking in, and he was greeted with an unwelcome burst of smoke. He hacked on it, suddenly  _ laughing _ , standing there hunched like an idiot at the window. Cackling. He yanked the cigarette out of his lips and went boneless against the sill, pressing clammy palm to clammy forehead and barking into the night air. Part of him was terrified one of his friends would somehow hear him (how would they not recognize that caterwaul by now) and come to find him, not wanting to be left out of the joke, but he couldn’t stop. His lungs burned with it. The cold air drove little pinpricks into his throat as he gulped it down. He could hardly get a drag in. 

What a joke to get left out of.

Richie swallowed hectic little bursts of laughter, forcing himself to calm down enough to take in a first proper drag, shoulders shaking hysterically. He finally pulled in a lungful, nicotine sinking its fingers soothingly into the folds of his brain. A blanket settled over his nerves, tamping them down, head clearing up like the first good breath after the congestion of a cold. He tipped his head down to release a shaky sigh out the open window. 

Several breaths. No thoughts. Richie took another drag, willing his racing heart to just slow the fuck down, willing his mind to cooperate, to think, and to think about this the right way. A shiver ran up his spine, head telling a stubborn body to relax. To just relax.

He let out a quick little breath through his nose, speaking to an empty room, hating the way his voice echoed back at him. “What the fuck was he expecting?” It sounded mean.

He’d meant to ask that about Eddie, but it came out about himself. He sucked down another drag, soothing the jolt in his thoughts. 

Richie hadn’t been expecting anything, he hadn’t been  _ expecting _ at all, really, expectation was long gone on the matter of himself and Eddie, having been tamping it down since the day he realized his looks lingered on him a fraction of a second longer than on his other friends, since he found himself daydreaming about making him laugh in the middle of the school day. Richie hadn’t been  _ expecting _ anything, but it seemed he’d let a shred of hope hang around a smidge too long. 

“Fucked that up,” he said, more to himself this time, nearly breaking down and laughing again. “Screwed the pooch on this one.” Richie dearly wanted to shut the fuck up and enjoy his damn cigarette. 

He was going to really have something to daydreamnightmare about now. He’d gotten his kiss, he’d gotten more than he ever could have asked for as a lonely teenager. Hadn’t gone as planned, and as rarely as he’d ever let himself picture it, he pictured a  _ little _ less pain and aches and blood, but beggars could not be choosers. It had gone so,  _ so _ right for a little while, had  _ felt _ right, had  _ felt—  _

Richie wasn’t even sure where to begin breaking it down. Couldn’t begin to examine why the fuck Eddie had gone and done that, gone and made the first move, when Richie had been under the impression for ten or so years that he was the one thinking on loop about pulling something like that. Constantly on the back of his mind, popping up at inopportune times, in any moment they had a second alone, in any moment they were sitting closer than what was typically strictly heterosexually allowed. He considered for just a  _ second _ that Eddie had thought about that too, at least once before, then flapped a hand and waved that thought off. Couldn’t let himself entertain that. That was leading down a road to some real hurt, and Richie had to shear that one at the bud. 

Truth was he didn’t  _ know _ , and he wouldn’t. There was no way he’d have the balls to approach Eddie and ask about this after the fact, and there was no way Eddie was ever going to bring it up. If he ever spoke to him again, that was. 

“After you ran out on him, yeah.” Richie shook his head again, nausea surging, fighting it. His hands had never steadied, still shaking as he lifted the cigarette again to his lips. 

He suddenly never felt less like laughing. “ _ Screwed _ the fucking pooch, dropped your pants and shoved your dick right up the poor pooch’s—” 

Richie straightened like a Catholic school girl caught smoking in the ladies’ room when the door creaked open, sticking his offending hand out the window into the bitter cold to hide the cigarette. 

Ben hung his coat in the closet by the door, letting out a little breath and shrugging his shoulders, half visible around the corner. He smelled like winter air. “What are you doing up?” he asked, barely glimpsing Richie on his way in. 

Richie stood stock still, swallowing, tongue thick and bitter. “Nothing,” he started cleverly, squeezing his eyes shut. Idiot. “What were you doing out?” 

“I—” Ben laughed, appearing around the corner, dressed now in a sweatshirt and jeans. He beamed down at his shoes as he toed them off, nose red from the cold outside, cheeks pink from otherwise, apparently. He sat down heavily on the end of his bed, expression far away, dreamland. “I tried to lay down but I couldn’t sleep, so I just went back to see Bev for a little bit.” 

Richie stared at him, wondering if he wasn’t the only one with a story from tonight. He really, really, did not want to drop the second half of this cigarette, but he was going to need to act natural until Ben dipped to the bathroom or something to finish it. But he had to admit, this was an unexpected and pleasant distraction from his current less-than-sunshiney train of thought. Ben and Bev. Finally, huh? “So did you guys—”

Ben looked up at him for the first time, going red. “No, Jesus, nothing  _ happened _ , I just got to hang out with her for a while, it was really nice—” 

Ben stared at Richie and Richie stared back, trying desperately to make it look like his hand was not stuck pointedly out the window. Ben’s mouth hung half open, looking Richie up and down. 

“What the  _ fuck _ .” 

“Dude, it’s cold as fuck outside, I’m sorry, I just needed a smoke—” 

“Your— Richie, your  _ face _ .” 

“Oh.” Richie decided now was a good time to drop the cigarette. “Right, that.” A little embarrassed he’d forgotten, Richie pushed up his glasses as if his hand could hide it, but Ben had seen enough. 

“What the fuck happened?” 

“Benjamin I really,  _ dearly _ hate me and my pair of shiners here to rain on your parade, you looked endearingly excited to spill the beans on your chat with Beverly just now, can we focus on that for a minute?” Richie pulled his hand back inside, numb from cold, and rubbed it with a forced smile. 

Ben pinned him with his look, mouth still half open. “No—no, Richie, this seems a little more pressing.” 

Richie pulled down the screen and wrenched the window shut for something to do, trying to get out of Ben’s direct line of sight for just a moment to collect himself and think. There was a laundry list of reasons why not to tell him the exact truth here. “Oh, I ran into a certain Rocky Balboa in the lobby and decided I fancied myself a little brawl before bed. That’s the last time I challenge a boxer while I’m tipsy, I’ll tell you what—”

“Richie,” Ben said, voice dropping low, tired. “I love you, man, but I’m not in the mood right now.” 

Richie swallowed, throat burning on swallowed blood and cigarette smoke. His voice got a little smaller, picking at a thumb nail as he crossed the room to sit on the foot of his bed. “My only request is that you don’t tell Bev. And you don’t freak out, for the love of God.” 

Ben was a gracious listener, always had been, and Richie was thankful that he asked only a few clipped questions and allowed him to get to bed without much fuss. Richie could tell he was a little more than upset, and if anything, Richie was glad he had a pack of guys behind him equally as furious about the Tom thing when it came to him badmouthing Beverly. They were big kids now, something could be done about the creeps and the bullies, and Richie could tell once he got changed into his sweatpants and finally settled into bed that Ben was trying to work up some kind of plan for that. 

“Please don’t lose sleep over this, dude, we’ll figure something out.” 

“I know.” Ben was still sitting up, now dressed for bed, blankets pulled up over his lap. The lamp on his side was still on. “I’m just angry.” 

“I am too.” Richie settled stiffly onto his back. “We’re not gonna let that creep touch her, we’ll make sure he’s not gonna be a problem for her before we leave.” 

Ben nodded, jaw tense, gazing resolutely at the door. “I’ll let you tell her tomorrow. But she’s gonna be really upset.” 

“I know.” 

“Not at you so much, just that it happened.” 

“I know.” 

“Shit,” Ben said, scrubbing his hands down his face. “We have breakfast together tomorrow at like. Ten.” He looked disdainfully at the clock on the nightstand between their beds, cheerily announcing the witching hour. He looked to Richie. “Maybe you should go see Bev before then so she has a fair warning before she sees you.” 

“Or I could find some Phantom of the Opera mask and pretend it’s some new gimmick.” 

“Dude.” 

Richie wanted to lay on his side. He could not. Face hurt. Ben was blurry, his glasses on the nightstand. “I’ll handle it.”

“Please do,” Ben said, finally starting to settle down. “Just— ask for help if you need it.” 

Richie was out the moment Ben clicked off the light, finally dragged down by exhaustion, thoughts giving way to static. 

Eddie couldn’t stop washing his face. 

Try as he might, even when the last hints of blood were gone, he couldn’t scrub away the heat in his cheeks, the throbbing pain in his temples, the wide, brimming look he kept catching in the mirror. 

The first thing he did when he woke up from what was hardly really sleep at all was wash his face. Attempt to force his expression back into something normal. It felt like  _ I made a very bad very stupid mistake and went and got my feelings hurt _ was written in red Sharpie across his forehead. He might as well go ask Beverly to borrow some makeup and paint himself up like the clown he felt like just to top it off. There was no way the others weren’t going to know something was wrong; Eddie was cursed with those stupid big cow eyes that betrayed every little emotion that crossed his little pea brain. And Jesus, Lord, were there a lot running around in his empty skull. It was not difficult to make him feel like a moron, but this morning he felt especially brainless. 

He whined aloud like an exasperated kid when he caught sight of his borrowed shirt hanging over the curved shower curtain rail, damp and still stained. 

Richie had scrambled out the door, left him sitting on the bed, fired up and confused considering he’d been thinking it was going okay, and Eddie immediately got up to wash his face. He’d gone numb the moment Richie pulled back from him and he saw the look on his face, defenses going up, refusing to feel anything, knowing feeling anything right there was going to hurt like a bitch. 

The water had been freezing, which felt sadistically refreshing, and Eddie hoped that it would snap him out of it. Whatever it was that had driven him to go and do  _ that _ . But his expression, lost and upset and honestly wanting to scream or cry or pitch some tantrum, remained stuck to his stupid face. 

Eddie, already sick to his stomach, had noticed a few red globs on the otherwise unbroken coral of his shirt while drying his face off, Bev’s friend’s shirt, and started to feel faint.

He’d been frantic, scrubbing desperately at the spots and nearly burning his hands under the hot water, terrified to accidentally tear the fabric or otherwise fuck this up. He nearly burst into tears from stress when one of the buttons caught on the drain and nearly popped off, but he managed to hold himself together long enough to detangle it and save it. 

But the blood hadn't quite come out, and Eddie had been forced to give up, not wanting to fuck up the shirt more. 

Eddie had washed his face again once the shirt was hanging up. 

He decided to shave before breakfast, although there was really no need to. He’d shaved before the show yesterday, and was not exactly at the point of even getting much of a shadow, but he needed something meticulous to do to try and keep his head on straight. 

All he managed to do was nick his cheek and feel worse. It was no big deal, but with the state he was in, everything felt monstrous. He decided it was a good time to lay down on the bed for a moment to collect himself. 

He did not succeed in collecting himself. 

Eddie had laid there for hours the previous night (after the first and second face washings, the first shirt washing, and a very futile attempt to rinse out the worst of the blood from the hotel wash cloths before guiltily pitching them) and had caught a severe case of thinking. Not even overthinking, not quite. It was disorganized and overwrought, but for a while he couldn’t bring himself to move from the spot. Sleep had eluded him for the most part, leaving him feeling raisin withered when the sun started to rise between the curtains he’d never bothered to draw. 

It was never fair starting a new day without having slept. There was no closure from the concept of yesterday and no introduction to the concept of today, it was a disorienting and depressing continuous line, and Eddie was fully feeling the weight of it. He braved the mirror again after some time, knowing he was going to be late. 

And being late only reinforced the idea that something was wrong, but he was having trouble accepting he was going to have to face his friends in this state. 

Not to mention facing Richie, who he was sure had probably bruised up worse over night and who Eddie was feeling middle school sick about seeing. He didn’t want to see him at all, let alone all beat to shit, didn’t want to think at all about the stupid cartoonish expression he’d no doubt have to see when Richie saw him next, the guilt or worse. 

He considered not going, but that somehow made things too obvious. Somehow solidified that he did something wrong and  _ knew _ he did something wrong. He looked like shit, he realized, and trying to dampen his hair to fix it and pinching at his cheeks to give himself a little color wasn’t going to do anything. He looked about as good as he felt. 

Clothes, he decided. Eddie donned a t-shirt, jeans, and the sweatshirt he’d arrived in. He wasn’t cold, but he felt oddly exposed in just the t-shirt. An extra layer was just weight, just a little pressure to keep him something resembling calm. Placid at best. 

It was rapidly approaching 10:30. He wished he knew exactly what he’d done wrong. He was trying not to think about it. Heading for the door, Eddie paused, staring at Richie’s tie. He’d left it in his hustle out the door. Eddie hadn’t known what to do with it besides roll it up neatly and set it on his nightstand, where it had remained. Bringing it to breakfast wasn’t an option for a number of reasons. There would be questions, first of all, and perhaps worst of all, it would require him to hand the stupid thing to Richie, thus solidifying the fact that he’d been in Eddie’s room, and that something, at the very least, had transpired. 

Which Eddie was struggling a little to admit to himself as it was. 

Eddie walked right into a chair upon entering the dining room. It was on the opposite side of the lobby to the bar, smelling like syrup and eggs and general cheap hotel breakfast foods, and just chock full of hazards for poor buffoons who forgot how to walk when stressed. He’d raised a hand to wave to Beverly who noticed him first, didn’t look where he was going, and was caught immediately in the gut by the back of the offending chair. Stanley was seemingly unable to hold back a bark of a laugh before asking if Eddie was okay, which he was, he was fine, pride merely a little wounded, but mostly fine because it seemed Richie hadn’t made it downstairs yet. The rest of them were mostly though eating.

“Look who’s last again,” Stan said, pointing at him with a chunk of waffle barely hanging off the end of his fork. “I had half a mind to come looking for you, I was worried maybe you got caught up with Richie last night and suffered the same fate.” 

Eddie felt the color drain from his face, saved immediately by Ben. 

“I told you, he’s not hungover, he wasn’t feeling good this morning. He said it was something he ate.” 

“He’s absolutely hungover and you’re absolutely gullible,” Stan said, not having it.

“I’m hungover,” Kay announced, raising a limp hand, her hair in danger of drooping into the last few bites of her oatmeal. 

“Are you feeling okay, Eddie?” Mike asked, nearly making him jump.

He took an unsettled seat at the table next to him, nodding quickly. 

“Oh, yeah, I’m just tired. I haven’t been out that late in a long time and I was probably a little antsy from all the excitement last night so it took me a while to settle down so—” 

Bev cut him off, doing him a kindness. “Do you want anything to eat? There’s still some food out on the buffet.” 

Eddie would have honestly rather died than eat from several bins of food most likely prepared hours beforehand and sitting under heaters or in pans of hot water to keep them warm and nothing close to fresh, but he got up and got a plate of powdered eggs for himself anyway, giving the chairs a wide berth on the way back. He didn’t bother to grab a fork, the eggs were more for show. 

“Is everybody heading home today?” Ben asked, glancing quickly around the table. He looked a little unnaturally squirrely. 

Stanley, Patty, Bill, Beverly, and Mike all looked like kids on the return leg of a long road trip, all happied-out and peacefully tired, suddenly realizing this meant an end to the adventure. 

Bill nodded soberly. 

“I think I’m first out, unfortunately,” Mike said. “I’ve gotta go get packed up after we finish up here.”

“Our plane leaves at four,” Stan said. 

“Five-thirty,” Eddie added, feeling his heart sink a little. In all the excitement of yesterday, it was easy to forget that it was Sunday, it was the end of the line. It was never enough time. 

The table deflated slightly. Kay was the only who seemed not to notice. She sprinkled some extra sugar on top of her oatmeal, scraping together several islands of it and taking a slightly too big bite. Eddie winced. 

Subtle as it was, Eddie could tell by the twitch in the muscle in his forearm that Stanley was tracing a thumb over the back of Patty’s hand under the table. He looked far away for a moment, looking them all over, eyes flickering to the chair they’d saved for an absent Richie. 

Stan’s voice pierced through the quiet that had fallen across the table. “Every time we’re all together I wonder if it’s the last time.” He glanced down at the table when no one responded for a moment, voice a little hushed. “Do you guys ever worry about that?” 

The whole room seemed to fall silent for a moment, all clinking of silverware pausing momentarily for them, the Losers exchanging a series of glances, heavy. Eddie’s chest cinched up, hands gripping each other tightly in his lap under the table. There was also the grueling recognition that, at least at the table, it wasn’t even all of them. That  _ all of them together in the same room  _ had already happened last night in Beverly’s dorm, and there were no set plans for when it would happen again. It only got harder as each of their lives branched off, only got more and more rare, and Eddie was petrified to even consider the day he woke up and realized it would never happen again. 

He felt dizzy when he realized he’d left his camera in his room all last night. No picture from this time either. He stared down at his eggs, willing himself to keep a straight face. 

“My  _ God _ , Patty, this guy is a downer,” Kay offered finally, snapping the silence at the table. 

Beverly smacked at her, but Bill laughed. “W-watch your competition, Stan.” 

“If he ever gets boring you call me, sweetheart, I’ll get you hooked up.” Kay winked, which made Patty laugh, holding onto Stan’s arm. 

“He’s a little introspective sometimes, but boring is the last thing he is.” 

Stanley grinned widely, seemingly having recovered. “You said something about competition, Bill?” 

“Stanley’s finally found a girl who can st-stand him,” Bill said, leaning behind Mike to throw a long arm over Stan’s shoulders to pat his back. “We’re proud.” 

“I need a smoke. You kids are too damn sentimental for me.” Kay stood, ruffling up Beverly’s hair. “If I come back and there’s any tears, so help me God. Watch that one for me,” she said, pointing to Eddie. “He kinda looks like he’s on the verge of tears at any given moment.” 

Richie managed to slip unnoticed by the dining room and out of the lobby to get in a proper smoke, only to be intercepted by Kay moments later. He nearly fumbled his cigarette, ducking his face away as if she hadn’t just spotted him on the sidewalk and wasn’t making a beeline. 

“Holy  _ shit _ .” 

“Hi, Kay—”

“Food poisoning looks a lot worse on you than on anyone else, then?” 

Richie winced, pulling his cigarette out to bite his lip. “Is that what Ben went with?” 

“In so many words.” Kay looked him up and down, making Richie feel a little examined, pinned to the brick facade of the hotel at his back, and shook her head. She pulled out her own pack, those little skinny cigarettes Richie wasn’t sure the name of, he couldn’t spot it on the carton, and flicked two fingers at him as she popped one in her mouth. “Got a light?” 

Richie dug for his lighter in his pocket, holding it out and offering to light it for her. She took it out of his hand to do it herself and he tried not to look embarrassed. 

“Do I wanna ask?” 

Richie thought about it. “I don’t want you to, but you probably should.” 

“All your buddies are in there all bummed out you didn’t come to breakfast.” 

“I really don’t need the guilt right now, I know.” He took a drag, pocketing his lighter when she handed it back. “I didn’t wanna throw a wrench in the quaint little hotel breakfast plans, they shouldn’t be worrying about me this morning.” 

“That face could throw a wrench in a lot. That face is a whole monkey wrench, dude.”

He gestured loosely. “Thus why I asked Ben to cover for me.” 

“He’s a terrible liar.” 

Richie sighed. “I know, his heart’s too big for it.” 

Kay nodded, taking a drag. She looked a little less severe in broad daylight, dressed down in jeans and a big coat. Her hair was pulled half back, bangs falling wavy over her brow. Richie swallowed. Kay exhaled. “Beverly already said you guys were close, but Christ. You’re like kids from some cheesy coming of age movie. You all have some kind of blood pact or something?” 

Richie laughed. “Not quite, I just think getting pushed around by the same people in the same shit town in your formative years sparks a little codependency.” 

“It’s not codependent,” Kay said. “You guys are all startlingly individual, it’s a little scary. Stanley kinda freaks me out a little.” 

Richie gave her a look, grinning in disbelief. “He’s the least intimidating person I know. Have you seen him?” 

Kay shrugged. “His girlfriend is cute.” 

“She is.” His face hurt, throbbing sore in the cold air. A couple passed the two of them, holding hands. The girl did a double take at Richie, and he grinned the best he could. 

Kay looked up at him, again boring into him, and Richie looked away to take another drag, one foot tapping on the sidewalk. He held the smoke in his lungs for a little longer than usual, letting it tumble around, before releasing it. Richie looked back down at her, raising his eyebrows. 

“What’s your last name?” 

Richie blinked. “Tozier?” 

“Let me know if you’re ever in Chicago again, Tozier.” She ashed her cigarette. “Now what the fuck happened to your face?” 

After the events of the previous night, Richie wasn’t banking on having any godforsaken idea what the day would hold for him. But the last thing he pictured was being dragged back into the hotel by the ear by a spitting mad Kay McCall. Breakfast had luckily seemed to disband, so he wasn’t paraded in in front of all of his friends to be made a huge liar, but every other eye in the hotel was on the two of them as Kay hollered Beverly’s name aimlessly into the lobby. 

It luckily didn’t take her long to track Bev down, about to head into the elevator with Mike and Bill. The others seemed to have retreated back up to their own rooms already. 

Richie’s stomach was doing flips. He was going to be lucky to escape this without throwing up on his own shoes. He dug his heels in for a moment, desperately thinking he could duck out of this if he was stubborn enough, but Kay’s nails dug into his ear and he nearly yelped, clumsily following her up to Bev and the boys. 

“ _ Look _ at this,” Kay said, finally releasing Richie to face a rather shocked looking gaggle of his friends. 

Beverly’s mouth dropped open, her hands flying to her face to cover it. “ _ Richie— _ ” 

Richie tried to say something, anything, but was silenced, Kay talking over all four of them as everyone tried to speak at once. 

“Tom did this to him last night, I told you he—” 

“ _ Tom _ did this?” Beverly’s voice cracked, looking genuinely horrified. She scanned Richie’s face, expression a whole cocktail of conflict. Richie wanted dearly to simply evaporate into thin air right there, mouth hanging open stupidly, thinking rather pathetically that this was not how this was supposed to go. “You got in a  _ fight _ ?” 

“ _ No— _ ” 

“He got his ass kicked, look at him!” 

Richie desperately wished this scene was playing out anywhere else. The desk attendants looked uncomfortable, the few guests milling about the lobby and leaving the little breakfast area seeming genuinely unsettled. “Beverly,” he got in, voice a little hollow, weak and apologetic, “I didn’t—” 

“Apparently Tom was mouthing off about you and he mouthed off back,” Kay continued, running hot next to him. 

“What the hell did he do to you?” Beverly reached out to cup his face, pulling her hand back as if afraid to hurt him. That only made him feel more guilty, stomach tensing up. He tried not to look her in the eye but found her gaze anyway, feeling nauseous over the worry and fury in her eyes. 

Richie thought Kay was going to save him from specifying that particular detail, but she was silent, prompting him. Great. Richie glanced around between the three of them, rolling his eyes on instinct like it was no big deal. “Exactly what she said, I got mouthy and he got handsy. Nothing explicitly out of the ordinary for me.” He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he felt like toning down the severity now, when last night he’d been adamant about the gravity of the whole situation. 

“He pushed his face into the bar,” Kay supplemented, giving Richie a look. He understood he fucked up, but he was pretty sure he was not the one Kay was trying to get in trouble here. At least he hoped. 

“Your nose isn’t broken, is it?” Mike asked, finally speaking up. 

“No, E— no, it’s fine.” 

“It’s clearly n-n-n—” Bill took a breath. “It’s not. Is this the gu-guy from the party?” 

“Yeah, I pointed him out to you and um—” Kay snapped her fingers, searching for a name.

“Eddie,” Bill finished. He stared off for a moment, then looked to Mike. 

Beverly shook her head, having not taken her hand off Richie. It was resting on one arm at the moment, and he really couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him. There was guilt in there that shouldn’t be, and Richie was floundering, voice lost. 

“Richie, I don’t— I’m—”

“If you apologize for this I’m gonna be real pissed,” Richie said, finding words suddenly. He was still processing it, if he was being honest, considered something a little more personal had transpired afterward which he’d had to fret about all night, but his anger about Beverly being stuck at school with some kind of entitled trigger happy prick was resurfacing. 

“I knew he wasn’t just a general annoyance, Bev,” Kay said, glancing at the boys as well. “He’s actually dangerous, this is just proof of that.” 

“I didn’t wanna freak you out,” Richie admitted. “And I may have felt a little bad about taking it too far—” 

“I’m sure it wasn’t too far,” Kay said, suddenly on his defense. “Tom’s not exactly known for his patience.” 

“It was a  _ little _ far—” 

“Anyway,” Mike said, nodding at Richie. 

Right. “But— yeah. Probably wise if you know he’s bad news.” 

“I knew he was bad news,” Beverly said, looking to Kay. Richie couldn’t exactly read her expression. She looked generally upset, which was understandable, given the circumstances, but she and Kay exchanged a charged sort of look. Richie had the feeling this had been some kind of argument beforehand that the boys had nothing to do with. 

Bill and Mike also seemed to sense the awkwardness there, and Bill set a big hand on Beverly’s shoulder, which snapped her out of it momentarily. “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking it off and raking her fingers through her hair. “This— I’ll handle this whole thing, it’ll be okay. Mike, do you need any help packing up?” 

“No ma’am,” Mike said, squeezing her lightly around the shoulders. “I’ll find you before I have to head out.” 

Beverly breathed, seeming to relax a few degrees. She nodded, biting her cheek. “Okay.” 

“You know you d-don’t have to ha-handle—” 

“No, Bill, don’t worry about it.” 

“We’ve got it,” Kay reassured him, looking deadly serious about it. 

Bill looked Richie up and down. “Still gonna worry.” 

“You and me both,” Richie said. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Beverly asked, expression going tender and worried again. Richie couldn’t imagine the roller coaster going on in her brain. Christ, if he could fix all her problems for her at the cost of being slammed into any number of bars, he would. For now he’d just have to start making sure when he was getting his teeth bashed in that it was actually  _ fixing _ a problem, not contributing to it. 

“I got a free nose job out of it, didn’t I? Saved me a couple thousand bucks.” 

“Oh, honey,” Beverly said, patting his arm again. She very nearly cracked a smile, the first indication Richie got that this was going to pan out alright. “Sometimes I wish you were funny.” 

“Makes two of us,” Richie said.

“Three,” Mike offered generously. 

“F-f—” 

“Don’t even try, Denbrough.” 

Beverly finally cracked a laugh, Kay looking a little relieved as well. Beverly sighed, picking at a thread on Kay’s sleeve and settling herself. “If you guys are okay for now I think I’m gonna run back to my room really quick. But no one sneaks out on me without saying goodbye, right?” 

Three nods of confirmation. 

“Wouldn’t d-dream of it.” 

Beverly nodded as well. “Okay.” She tugged on Kay’s arm. “You coming with?” 

“Yeah, I’ll catch you guys before you go.” 

Richie was silenced from replying when Mike set a hand on his arm, a little tight. “I wanna get you some ice, you look rough.” 

Richie blinked, looking between him and Bill. “At this point, I don’t think ice is gonna—” 

“Get some ice, Rich,” Bill insisted, patting Mike’s back with a broad hand. “You g-got him?” 

“Yeah, I’ll take care of him. You go pack.” 

“It’s not that bad,” Richie whined, doubly tired of this. 

“Ha-have you seen yours-s—”

“Unfortunately,” he grumbled. 

Bill patted him as well and started off, Mike standing oddly still as he watched him head into the elevator. He waited until the doors slid shut, staring for a pregnant moment longer before gently pulling Richie’s arm, tugging him down the hallway. “We need to talk about something.” 

“Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker, what now?” 

Eddie was only a little hurt with how disappointed Stanley looked standing in his bathroom, eyeing over the soiled shirt. He’d caught him as they left breakfast, asking if he could help him out with something in private. Patty had left them to their devices, going to start packing up. 

Stanley was holding the shirt up in the yellow light of the bathroom, frowning. 

“Is it ruined?” 

“It’s  _ cold _ water, Eddie, you’re really supposed to use  _ cold _ water on blood.” He spread the still damp shirt over the bathroom counter, looking it over. “How long have you been getting nosebleeds?” 

Eddie bobbed his foot, leaning against the doorframe, watching him in the mirror. “Since— I mean, it’s Spring.” 

“Maybe you should invest in a humidifier.” 

“Right.”

“Or at least learn how to get blood out of a shirt.” 

“I get the point, Stan, can you get it out or not?” 

Stanley sighed, glancing over to him. “I can do my best. I’ve heard when it sets in if you can get some hydrogen peroxide it can help, so we’re gonna have to take a little field trip to find a pharmacy—” he trailed off, watching Eddie press his lips together. He rocked onto his heels, giving Stanley a shy grin. “You have some on you, don’t you.” 

“Why do you say it like that?”

“Go grab it, we’re gonna have to ask Beverly to let us into her laundry room to wash this afterward and I still have to pack, so we’ve gotta move quick.”

Eddie did as told, retrieving a bottle from his toiletry bag and handing it to Stan, heart nearly stopping when he doused the shirt with it. 

“If it doesn’t come out—” 

“If you don’t chill out, I’m gonna strangle you with the shirtsleeves.” 

Eddie nodded. Got it. He fretted around while Stanley got to work, careful on the delicate fabric, working the browning stains out the best he could without causing pilling. Eddie really did need some kind of crash course on this shit. He was still shit at regular laundry, which was something Eddie was pretty sure was a difficult thing to be bad at. Stanley made him take over after a moment, going to use the phone in his room to call Beverly and ask if they could use the laundry room in her building. 

He returned a moment later, scratching his head. “She wasn’t in Bill and Mike’s room, but I caught her at her place. There’s a code to get into the back door of the basement in her building, she said we could just punch that in and we’ll be good. I told her I spilled jam on my pants this morning.”

Eddie hung his head with relief for a moment. “You’re a godsend.” 

“How’s it going?” 

“It looks better.” Eddie was starting to ease up. The blood was coming out, the sink water barely pink, nothing like the mess it had been when he’d tried the first time with the rags. He took a quick breath, trying to reassure himself that this was a mess he could clean up. 

In no time, he and Stanley were sitting on top of the dryers in the basement of Beverly’s building, waiting for the shirt to get out of a quick rinse cycle. They were quiet for a moment, both of them tired. Eddie watched Stan for a moment, always a little baffled at how much he still looked like Stan. His hair had gotten a little darker, but his face, which Eddie presumed must have just been a kind of grown up face for a kid, as he definitely didn’t have a baby face, looked just about the exact same. He just looked stretched out. Still dressed the same, smart and conservative, and Eddie had to grin. It was nice to have a staple in something, even if it was just Stanley and his cardigans and nice shoes. 

“I really like Patty,” Eddie said, needing to say something. “I mean I like how you seem to really like her, I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to her personally yet. But you seem really happy with her.” 

Stanley looked down at his shoes, swinging. “I do really like her, yeah.” He looked over his shoulder to Eddie, hands pressed on top of the dryer. “I was actually a little worried I was gonna be too caught up in getting to take her somewhere and I wouldn’t get enough time to properly hang out with you guys. This was the first time we got to actually book a hotel together and everything, usually if we’re going anywhere together it’s her parent’s place and I’m on the couch all weekend.” 

“Do you get on alright with her parents?” 

Stanley sucked his teeth. “Well enough. I think her dad’s a little skeptical about me.” 

“I find that hard to believe.”

“He let me light the first candle on the menorah last year and I did it on the wrong side. I don’t think he’s over it.” 

Eddie held back a little laugh. “But your dad—” 

“I know, it wasn’t good.” 

“Sounds like he’s searching for reasons to not like you.” 

Stanley shrugged. “He’s a little protective.” 

“He might warm up,” Eddie said, trying to reassure him. “Just figure out the candle thing, maybe.” 

“Menorah.” 

“I know what it’s called.” Eddie swung his feet. Stanley hopped off the dryer to retrieve the shirt when their washer dinged, shaking it out and moving it over to the dryer he’d been sitting on, then hopping back up. “I think you did fine giving us enough attention even with her here, though.” 

“I really hope so.” 

“Well, I’m not tired of you yet, so maybe I could have used a little more time with you—” 

He shoved at Eddie’s shoulder. “What about you, you twerp, showing up dragging your feet and late to everything?” 

“I wasn’t dragging my feet,” Eddie protested, playing with the hem of his sweatshirt. “I was worried about looking stupid yesterday and I was tired this morning—” 

“I noticed your inhaler on your nightstand when I went to call Bev.”

Eddie blanched. His inhaler, which he’d apparently forgotten to put away, was next to Richie’s coiled up tie, yet unreturned. He honestly wasn’t sure if he was going to return it yet, not wanting to either confront Richie or ask someone else to give it to him and risk being questioned. He looked to Stanley, searching his face and able to read nothing. 

“Thought you didn’t need that anymore.” 

“I don’t—” Eddie said, wincing and backtracking. “I mean I don’t actually, I just brought it just in case.” 

“In case of what?” 

Eddie had been sucking down puffs like he hadn’t in years trying to sleep the previous night. He tried not to think about it. The stupid thing had been a weight in his bag all weekend, he’d only brought it because he brought one from home back to his apartment after the Christmas incident, then felt like he should bring it with him to Chicago just in case. He shifted uncomfortably, one foot bobbing rapidly against the front of the dryer. “In case I managed to stress myself out to the point of not being able to breathe, I guess.” 

Stanley nodded, not prodding any further. Eddie was glad, he was sore on the subject enough. His stomach felt unsettled, nerves pinging. Just don’t ask about the tie. 

“I have kind of a weird question.” 

_ Please, God, just one thing, once. _ Eddie tipped his head back silently begging. “Hm?” he hummed, trying to be nonchalant. 

“Have you been having nightmares lately?” 

Not what he was expecting, quite honestly. Eddie looked again to Stan, who looked a little pale. Eddie blinked, concerned. “Not— not really. Have you?” 

Stanley chewed the inside of his cheek, quiet for a moment. “Patty said I was talking in my sleep the whole time we were here. Which I’ve never really done before, to my knowledge.” 

“Richie does that,” Eddie said automatically, feeling a light flush run down his neck before he backtracked. “He did when he was staying at my place on the couch, I could hear him from my room but I couldn’t tell what he was saying, he was out on the couch. Talking.” 

Stanley gave him a strange look and Eddie swallowed. “You couldn’t make out anything he was saying?” 

Eddie shook his head. “Could Patty with you?” 

“Yeah,” he said, voice dropping a little. “She kept waking me up because I was creeping her out.” 

Eddie stared at him for a moment. A cloud had passed over his expression, eyes looking foggy and far away. Eddie felt his pulse flick up, pressing a thumb to the inside of his wrist. 

“You remember what I said last night? In Bev’s room? ” 

“Which part?” 

“That I think something happened to us that we can’t remember.” 

Eddie took in an involuntary rushed little breath, pressing his palm to his sternum and clearing his throat. He didn’t speak for a moment, thoughts swirling, something silencing him that felt like fear. He glanced out the high window near the ceiling of the basement, letting in early afternoon light, the warmth of it somehow not reaching him. “Stanley,” he said. Stanley looked silently at him. “I’m kind of worried you’re right.” 

Stanley nodded, stroking his thumb over his opposite palm. 

Eddie had a strange impulse to do the same. “I tried talking to Richie about it once.” 

“How’d that go?” 

“We both had conflicting stories. It got frustrating fast” He couldn’t remember how or why they’d dropped the subject. 

“Anything about a turtle?” 

Eddie’s eyebrows scrunched together. Stanley was losing him here. “What? No.” No reptiles at all, in fact. 

“Was that his tie on your nightstand?” 

Only Stanley could derail a conversation this quickly and wish such a punch to the gut. And only Stanley always seemed to know way more than he should. Eddie felt his stomach drop to his toes, doing his best to keep his face even, only to pull a stage scoff. A little too theatrical. “No, that was mine.” 

“You didn’t wear a tie.” 

“I was going to.” 

“But you didn’t.” 

“ _ Stanley _ ,” Eddie barked, gripping the edge of his dryer, unable to keep from getting defensive. “If you have something to say, just fucking say it, don’t sit here and be a dick about it.” 

For a moment, Stanley didn’t say anything at all, in fact. Eddie looked pointedly out the small windows again, heart still hammering, before finally looking over to Stanley, who was barely grinning. “I’ll let you tell me on your own time.” 

Ben and Richie, as the only two who didn’t have a plane to catch, were the last to leave. 

They checked out of their hotel at noon and packed up their cars, spending the rest of the day saying their goodbyes to the rest of them (seeing off Mike, then Bill, then Patty and Stan and Eddie who’d decided to take the same car as their flights weren’t too spaced out, all clambering into taxis to head to the airport) and lingering around Beverly to relish in whatever time they had left. 

The three of them got dinner at one of the dining halls on Beverly’s campus, the excitement from earlier in Richie and Bev’s day having calmed down considerably. Beverly and Kay had taken a moment away from the guys and had seemed to chill out, and dinner with the three of them was a much lighter affair. Richie wanted to call her when she got home and see what was going on with all that. He’d fill in Ben so he wouldn’t worry when he could. Once they’d finished, Ben had soberly decided aloud that it was getting late and they should probably get going, looking to Richie, who very nearly begged Beverly to stay a little longer. He could sleep on her floor like a dog if he had to, he really didn’t care, not faced with the stretch of empty days at his parents’ house and the donut shop. 

But he figured it was about time to make his exit. 

He and Ben had parked close to each other in the hotel garage coincidentally, and Beverly had walked them out one last time. Richie’s heart was already heavy with the crushing weight of having said goodbye to everyone else (fretting still about how unwilling Eddie had been to even get close to eye contact with him, but figuring it may be for the best), but it felt like it was being squeezed in a vice when he was giving Beverly a final hug. He lifted her up onto her toes, not quite off the ground, face buried in her messy hair, and held her to his chest as long as he dared before replacing her on the ground. Ben and Beverly’s hug was a little more brief, a little bashful, and Richie realized he’d never gotten the full story on what they’d talked about the night before. He could always call him later. 

He was going to have to make a lot of phone calls, desperate continued efforts just to keep in touch. 

Ben had given Richie a wonderful and crushing hug, looking maybe just a little misty as he finally clambered into his car to get going, creeping out of the garage and back onto the street with a parting little honk. Even his car sounded a little sad. 

Richie was left alone with Beverly for a precious minute, hands in his pockets, both of them half sitting on the hood of his car, unable to bring himself to so much as unlock the damn thing. 

“You’ll let me know if anyone gives you any trouble, right?” 

“What, so you can come up here and get your nose broken again?” 

Richie stuck his tongue out at her, receiving a middle finger in turn and another little laugh. 

“I really am sorry you got hurt, Richie.” 

“I told you not to apologize—” 

He shut up when he felt her head thunk down on his shoulder. “I wanna thank you for sticking up for me, but I don’t wanna encourage you to keep pulling stupid shit like that.” 

“It wasn’t stupid,” he said, relaxing and giving her a final squeeze, arm around her from the side. “It was worth it.” 

She smacked at his chest when she sat back up, beaming up at him nonetheless. “I hate all of you and your respective hero complexes.”

“Only for you, madame.” He gave her a little curtsy as he stood up. “You’ll watch out for yourself, right?” 

“I will, I promise. Only if you promise me the same.” 

“I’d do anything for ya, darlin’.” 

Beverly sighed, looking him up and down one more time. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” 

“I’ll be waiting with bated breath.” 

“You’d better.” 

Another series of quiet moments passed between them, comfortable, yet lingering with the silent expectation of being broken. Beverly took a moment to get off the car, almost as if she could sit there and keep him from going. 

But Richie did have to go. He hated seeing Beverly finally get up, finally turn to head back up the stairs to the street level, feeling the temporary veil of  _ everything’s alright _ that had settled over him at dinner with her and Ben start to tear, the rest of his worry starting to rush back in. 

Finally resigning himself, Richie slid into his cramped driver’s seat and shut his door on Chicago, pressing his tender forehead to his steering wheel for only a moment. Entirely too much had happened, and he was about to have entirely too much time alone to let it all rot in his brain. 

Though he wasn’t present when he’d asked, Richie had a clear answer to Stan’s question at breakfast. 

_ Constantly _ . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did anybody who read the book catch the little reference in the title? the chocolate milk trick ben taught eddie when they first met? it's adorable


	15. IN WHICH EDDIE’S NO LONGER LYING ABOUT ONE THING AT LEAST (GETTING OFF ON TECHNICALITY)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gentle reminder that this fic is 18+: this chapter includes sexual content. doesn't quite qualify as porn, persay, but it's there

**MID/LATE MARCH 1997**

**NEW YORK**

Eddie arrived back at his apartment late on Sunday evening, dragging both the weight of his suitcase and of what had transpired behind him. He had one more week before he was off for spring break. Midterms. Acting natural. Then hopefully the break would actually feel like one this time. 

He only slept the first night home out of sheer exhaustion. After barely getting a wink in Saturday night and failing (even with the help of a pill or two) to snooze on the plane, Eddie’s brain mercifully shut him down the moment his face hit the pillow at home, only to wake up with a line of drool down his cheek when his alarm crowed shrilly at 7:30. 

He had been sincerely hoping that jumping right back into his routine at school would make him feel normal. But when he dragged himself back into his first class, settling in for a review, it felt as if everyone Knew. 

He’d heard bullshit claims told by boys in high school about how parents could just Tell when a girl had lost her virginity by looking at her, (never quite believing it and finding that to be stupid and somewhat of a double standard for an old wives’ tale), but despite his disbelief, Eddie felt sick and paranoid about a similar thing as he made his way to his seat. As if something was stuck to his forehead, a neon sign with a blinking arrow pointing cheerfully and damningly to him in the front row: 

_I KISSED MY BEST FRIEND AND DIDN’T MIND THE SCRUFF BURN!!!_

Not to mention, he hadn’t spoken a word to Richie since. 

_AND I'M A SHIT FRIEND TO BOOT!!!_

While, deep down, Eddie was sure he was ignored as usual by the rest of his peers in that lecture, he noticed every passing glance in the hallways and as he crossed the street, all eyes knowing and seemingly trained on his paranoid face. Every little snippet of conversation between friends on the quad or in the cafeteria was about him and his spectacular little fuckup, every so much as off look from the ladies in the office later that day was them, if not realizing with horror that their sweet baby girl had had her cherry popped, realizing that their usually well-mannered office assistant had went and proved all the bullies in high school right in one fell mash of lips on lips. 

Maybe that was the worst part. The part where Eddie was forced to remember with humiliating clarity the morning he’d approached his locker among a sea of snickers, finding _FAIREY_ (the misspelling making it hurt no less) spray painted across it in pink, glitter stuffed through the vents in the metal to coat all his books and stick to his clothes and skin when he opened it, mortified, left undefended. The part where Eddie had to bitterly go about his day, thinking how much easier it would have been if Richie had been there, Richie, who would have scraped up all the spare glitter from the floor and the shelves of the locker and dusted his own hair with it so Eddie wasn’t alone, collecting it in his pockets to throw at Stanley and Bill later. Richie who would have made him feel like he was less alone and like it didn’t matter what words were flung at any of them, because they’d labeled _themselves_ the Losers and that was the only title that had to matter. because they were all together, because it was a name they gave themselves and each other.

The part where Eddie proved the bullies right and drove Richie away in the same instant. 

While all of them helped in their own ways, each of Eddie’s friends making him feel more like life was worth living and he was worth liking in their own respective ways, Richie was the one who made it feel like other people’s words didn’t matter. Like it only mattered what his real friends thought. Richie was full of words, sometimes absolutely bursting with them, and Eddie remembered hanging onto each of them as a kid. Mock not paying attention, telling him to shut up, tossing dirt or water or insults at him to quiet him, but listening each time nonetheless. In awe of just how much he must have crammed up there in his brain, about how fearless he was when it came to spewing out anything on his mind, even if it got him detention or a knee to the gut. His head slammed into a bar. Even when beeping him, when scolding him, when batting him around and begging him to take a damn breath and shut the fuck up, Eddie always received a Patented Dentist’s Son Smile out of it. Richie never seemed quite hurt by his beepings from Eddie. There was an implicit understanding, an

_I’m being loud to get your attention._

_And I’m shutting you down to make it look like I’m not really listening._

_And I don’t mind, because I know you are._

And Eddie felt like he’d gone and done what he’d thought was impossible. He’d gone and broken that implicit trust, something unbreakable and unspoken and unmarred. He’d jumped on Richie without so much as hesitating to ask how he might feel about that and he’d scared him off. Made an ass of himself from assuming, reading too much into that doe eyed look and that hand on his shin. The details conflicted too much in Eddie’s head to fully understand: how the hell could he get away with kissing him again after the nosebleed like a live wire and then leaving the room like he’d been electrocuted? Both of those facts couldn’t logically coexist. 

And Eddie was damn sure about watching Richie race like a bat out of hell to the door. That image was branded into the inside of his skull, rubbing up uncomfortably on his brain with every passing thought. 

He wasn’t himself when he settled down on Tuesday night to study with Myra. She said so herself, looking at him with her kind concerned eyes across the library table. Asked if he needed an aspirin, or maybe a hug, both of which he politely turned down, but the offers in and of themselves felt nice. He felt taken care of in a way he hadn’t been in a while, in a way he couldn’t take care of himself right then. 

As Eddie was walking her back to her dorm, Myra mentioned that Julie had invited her to the lake house. This was the spring break tradition, the couple nights spent at Julie’s parents’ summer place in Connecticut. And while Eddie knew Julie knew Myra, (she’d introduced them, after all), this was the first year Myra had been invited. And Eddie was fairly sure that she and Julie were really just acquaintances; it was typically Eddie, Julie, Nancy, Ronnie, and occasionally one or two others (any current boyfriends). He had a sinking suspicion Myra’s invitation might be entirely about him. 

But it seemed Eddie was developing a habit of deciding not to do fuckall anything about any given unsettling situations in his life. Being passive was becoming increasingly appealing, considering how wrong it had gone the last time he’d decided to force fate into his own hands and pull a big move. The phone number for the Tozier’s was left untouched and tucked away in Eddie’s address book in his nightstand, Richie’s tie gathering dust in his suitcase, and the question of why the hell Myra had been invited was left unasked. Part of him wanted to say anything to Julie, ask her not to meddle, not to put pressure on this, but he couldn’t bring himself to. 

Eddie was oddly nonplussed about his midterms, simply getting down to studying, doing his work, and taking his tests. He wondered if he was losing his capacity to be stressed, that he’d simply put himself through the wringer so many times recently that his brain had decided to let go of any anxieties so his heart didn’t simply give out. 

(Wasn’t there a rumor that if a student died during an exam everyone got A’s automatically? Eddie wasn’t sure, but it seemed that he wouldn’t be taking that one for the team during midterms. He’d see about finals.) 

Eddie didn’t bother to check in on his grades before packing up for the lake, wanting to give himself space to think about a blissful nothing for the upcoming few days. He shrugged aside every wayward anxiety regarding Myra’s still unexplained presence on the trip. Not that he really minded. The two of them had continued doing work together despite not being in any classes together anymore, and he’d really started enjoying her company. This was just the first time they’d really be facing each other outside of a strictly school related activity, and Eddie was forcing himself to be cool about it. Myra rode in Julie’s car with him and Nancy (Ronnie and Boyfriend opting to take his car), and he was relieved to claim his usual spot in shotgun. Despite the number of times Julie had made the hour long drive out to Danbury, she always seemed to need Eddie and his keen eye for navigation to get her there without getting lost. He was grateful to feel useful for an hour or so. 

Eddie had noticed after returning from Albany that going out with Julie and the girls was somehow always lower pressure than meeting up with the Losers. He figured it was just a matter of the fact that his friends from home had known him so long. There were expectations to be the Eddie they knew at 13, that Eddie but just a little older, but still Eddie. Most of the time, Eddie was a little unsure who the fuck Eddie Kasprbak was. It was reassuring sometimes to know he could fall back into old habits with the guys and Bev, people who already had a pretty solid idea of him in their heads, but he was always a little worried to deviate too far from that. He’d met Julie the first week of college and only had a few years of expectations to keep up around her. He was allowed to be however the fuck he was in the moment, which included not knowing where the fuck he was going with anything. 

The house had a decent view of Candlewood Lake its large wall of windows in the living room and the loft above. When Julie’s parents allowed her the place to bring friends, despite there being enough bedrooms for everyone, they dug out camping mattresses and sleeping bags from the attic and set up in the living room, peering up into the rafters two stories above their heads and waking up when the sun streamed in through the trees outside the huge windows. It was a nice cabin, a backyard stocked with any number of kayaks and rafts and an aging golf cart for beer and grocery runs in town, and Eddie was glad he had somewhere to go far from the apartment in Queens cramped with pill bottles and the crowding presence of his mother once a year. 

“I heard somewhere that this lake is haunted.” 

They’d set up on the shore of the lake down the steep hill at the back of the house. There was a fire pit and a circle of rotting logs that served as benches. Ronnie’s boyfriend had spoken up as Eddie was helping gather up kindling for the fire around the scrappy makeshift beach, eyebrows furrowing. 

“Where the hell did you hear that?” Ronnie asked, tossing a handful of pine needles into the pit. 

“This is a manmade lake, right?” 

“Yeah, but—” 

He cut Julie off. “Apparently they had to flood this town called Jerusalem to make it. And there were four graveyards in Jerusalem.” He hunched and wagged his fingers at Ronnie. “Meaning there’s still hoards of bodies under the water.” 

Julie made a face, not having it. “My brother looked into it once. They relocated all the bodies before they flooded the valley,” Julie said, her hair knotted up at the base of her neck, hands dirty from collecting twigs. “There’s no lake bodies.” 

“Are you sure about that?” 

Eddie caught a worried look from Myra, shaking his head. There was nothing to worry about on that front. 

“I’m pretty damn sure, Matt,” Julie said. 

“Not worried about a corpse washing up on the sore?” 

“I’m much more concerned with the overfed geese around here,” Eddie cut in, wiping his hands on his jeans after tossing in an armful of twigs. “They get bolder every year. And if you wanna start on the ghost stories, it’s wise to wait until after dark.” Eddie gestured to the still blue sky, sun barely sinking. 

Ronnie’s boyfriend (Matt, Eddie always forgot his damn name) held his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t realize we had the resident expert in scary stories here.” 

“I’m just saying,” Eddie muttered. He glanced out at the water, golden in the sunlight clinging to the sky. Maybe not the resident expert, but he could tell there was nothing more sinister than the occasional three foot catfish in that lake. Call it an instinct. 

“Do you guys wanna run up to the liquor store and get us some ice?” Julie suggested. “I forgot we don’t keep the freezer stocked until summer.” 

“We could probably stand to get another six pack,” Nancy added. 

Matt caught the golf cart keys when Julie tossed them to him, spinning them around his finger. “You wanna come?” he asked Ronnie. 

She shook her head. “Nah, I gotta make sure Julie doesn’t catch her hair on fire again when we light this baby up.” 

Nancy laughed, and Julie straightened up. “That was _once_ , I swear to God you can let nothing go.” 

“That haircut was cute,” Nancy said, tugging at a loose piece of hair that had fallen out of Julie’s hair tie. 

Julie waved her off good-naturedly. “Ice, PBR, and maybe a couple of those little canned margaritas if you see them.” 

Eddie nodded, looking briefly to Myra. She was in a little quarter zip from school and a pair of shorts, hair loose around her shoulders. She’d been a little quiet since they’d arrived, sticking a little close to Eddie’s side. It was also Matt’s first time on the lake trip, but he had been with Ronnie for the past six months and was well acclimated to the other girls. “Do you want me to grab you anything specific?” 

She shook her head, hands in her pockets, smiling at him. “No thanks.” 

Eddie semi-awkwardly patted her shoulder before turning to head up to the golf cart, leaving the girls behind to start the fire. Ronn— Matt was already in the driver’s seat. 

“You know the way up there?” Eddie asked, skeptical, sliding into the seat next to him. 

He was fiddling with the junky little radio, trying to find a station through the fuzz. Eddie watched, refraining from telling him that thing didn’t work anyway. “Town’s just over the hill, right? I’ll find it. ” 

“I can drive, I know the way—” 

Matt floored the gas pedal and jerked the cart into motion, Eddie having to quickly reach up to hold onto the roof to keep from slipping off the seat. 

“I got it.” 

Matt had forgotten his wallet back at the house, leaving Eddie to go inside alone in case they wouldn’t sell the beer to them without both their ID’s. He stacked the boxes of beer and margaritas and carried them to the back of the cart himself, Matt lighting up a cigarette as he headed to grab a bag of ice from the cooler outside. He lugged that in the back and clambered back into the cart, Eddie again sliding in beside him. 

“So.” 

Eddie wanted to roll his eyes. He had a feeling he knew exactly what was coming, dreading small talk. Matt took several more moments to fiddle with the radio, not having given up. Still static. 

“You’ve come down here every year with Julie, right?” 

“Yup.” Eddie wanted to cross his arms, it was comfortable, but he let his hands rest in his lap, not wanting to look confrontational. Even if he felt a little prickly at the moment. He hoped the clipped tone was enough to keep Matt from talking further, to no avail.

“Has anything ever gone down between the two of you?” 

Eddie wondered how many times someone had asked the same thing. He’d grown tired of it the very first time. “No, we’ve just been friends for a while.” 

“Never?” 

“Nope.” 

“Ever thought about it?” 

“ _No_. Jesus.” 

Matt again held his hands up in mock defense before starting the cart and jerking out of the parking lot. Eddie hung onto the edge of the seat, trying not to get vertigo. He wasn’t excited about Matt driving them back down the hill, considering the way he’d banked around the sharp corners going up. 

_Golf carts have a tendency to roll._

“Okay, but Myra.” 

He’d been expecting this question too, and was no more excited to have to defend himself there was well. Eddie sighed, playing along, tone flat. “What about her?” 

“Ronnie said you two have been hanging out a lot.” 

Ronnie was the only one besides Eddie who was close with Myra. Eddie was vaguely aware of this, not realizing that this meant Matt may know her as well. He side eyed him. “Yeah, we do homework at the library.” 

“Are you trying to do a little something more than homework this weekend?” 

Eddie felt his face heat up, lip twitching. He despised the little glitter of mischief in Matt’s eyes behind his sunglasses. “Once again, we’re just friends.” 

“That’s not what Myra says.” 

Eddie straightened up, feeling his heart rate kick up. It seemed he hadn’t altogether lost the ability to get suddenly and uselessly anxious. “What? When’d she say— what did she say?”

“I didn’t talk to _her_ about it, but Ronnie said every time she sees her all she talks about is you.” 

“Okay—” Eddie said, preparing to give some excuse for that when the fact of it actually penetrated his thick skull. _All she talks about is you._ He swallowed, stomach tightening up a little bit. So much for low pressure and no expectations on this trip. “Like I said, we’re just friends.” It wasn’t convincing, and Eddie realized suddenly he wasn’t convinced of it himself, head spinning. 

“So you’re not into her?” 

Stupidly, Eddie realized he’d honestly not considered it. He felt guilt surge up the back of his throat, thinking about using her name for his fake girlfriend at Christmas, wondering how the hell the thought of him and Myra being anything besides friends had managed to slip by him. He was quiet for a moment, opening his mouth once or twice to say something and closing it again. His throat felt a little dry, dizzy for no real reason. Matt banked around a corner and Eddie’s stomach flipped. Maybe dizzy for one reason. “I— I’ve honestly never thought about it,” he said, a little quiet. 

“I’d get to thinking about it pretty damn soon, man,” Matt said, lightly elbowing him in a way which was not entirely welcome. “You’re gonna be sleeping in the same house the next couple nights, there’s a prime excuse to work something out if you’re feeling it.” 

Eddie was not really about feeling much lately, that was kind of the point. He picked at a nail, nerves spiking the closer they got to the lakeshore. _Work something out._ “What did Ronnie say specifically?” 

“She’s into you, dude, that’s why Ronnie said she should come. Give you guys a chance to do something a little more fun than study.” 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Eddie said, wincing, feeling his ears warm. 

Matt laughed. “Hey man, if the opportunity’s there—” 

“Yeah, I get it, thanks.” 

“It looks like it’s going to storm,” Myra said, pulling down the sleeves of her jacket. 

The six of them were huddled around the fire, cans and twigs in hand, drinking and roasting hot dogs. 

Julie, on Eddie’s other side, tipped her head back and squinted up at the sky, sunset having made way for a navy blue blanket by then. “I thought it said no rain on the radar.” 

Eddie looked up as well. “It’s cloudy,” he said, helpfully. The usual stars were blocked out. 

Julie shrugged, taking a sip of her margarita and pulling her flaming hot dog out of the fire to blow it out. “If it rains it rains, we can pack the stuff up fast.” 

Eddie pulled down his sleeves as well. He’d tugged a on hoodie over his shirt when the sun had started to go down, socks pulled up over bare his calves in case of ticks. He was still prepping his stick, having spent entirely too much time picking off the spare bark and turning it over the fire to burn off any excess bacteria before daring to stick what would be dinner on the end. Matt had been through two hot dogs and was on his third, using Julie’s method of sticking the poor thing into the heart of the fire and mercilessly charing it. He’d also been in charge of the little battery powered radio set by his feet. 

Eddie had never realized how fucking long some of Snoop Dogg’s songs could be. 

Myra yelped when her hot dog dropped off her stick and into the fire, and Eddie instinctively grabbed the pack to hand it to her. He watched his hand, watching and feeling her fingers brush his, immediately overthinking about not overthinking about it and glancing up, catching her eye and guiltily looking away. A half second interaction felt like a full minute, Eddie shifting a little where he sat on his log and grabbing a hot dog for himself and finally skewering it with his stick. 

Fuck Matt for even bringing it up. He couldn’t help but glare at him over the orange glow of the flames, sitting thigh to thigh with Ronnie, teasingly trying to steal bites of her hot dog. Nancy and Julie chatted together about the weather, Nancy suggesting they bring the sleeping bags out and sleep on the shore the next night if it cleared up, and Eddie felt himself struggling to stay present and not get lost in his thoughts. He’d managed to keep himself above the panic line when it came to his current romantic situation, which had been a task after Chicago. Every time he so much as considered it he forced himself to switch directions, and although the Myra situation was a good distraction, it was also something he now actively had to deal with. 

He perked up suddenly, hearing a familiar bassline for the first time that night. It took him a second to place it. “Oh, this is Qu—”

_Let’s kick it!_

It was not Queen. Deflating quickly, Eddie tipped his head back, a little exasperated, leg taking up bobbing. He swore under his breath, realizing he’d let his hot dog sink too far into the flames and had burned it. He pulled it out of the fire and glared at it, chest tight with undue frustration. 

“More of an ‘Under Pressure’ guy?” Matt asked. Eddie thought he looked weirdly smug. Then again, he got defensive sometimes, Matt could have been genuinely interested. Eddie took a breath. 

“Y—”

“Eddie’s a little stuck in the 80’s,” Julie said, waving her stick at him to tease him. 

“Oh, so like Queen and AC/DC and Motley Crue kind of shit?” 

“Yeah—” 

Julie cut in again. “Think more disco. And Wham! and Donna Summer—” 

“I still like Queen and AC/DC and— shit,” Eddie said, voice a little too loud. His face was red despite the chill setting in outside the heat of the fire, hands tense on his stick. He swallowed, feeling a strange tension fill the quiet moment that followed. “Like— ‘Hot for the Teacher’—”

“Isn’t that Van Halen?” 

“I like Van Halen,” Eddie said hurriedly. 

Matt gave him a look. “No need to be so defensive, my guy. I can change the channel if you don’t like this stuff.” 

_My guy._ Eddie’s chest burned, eyes dropping to his sneakers so as not to glare. He felt wound up in a bad way. The radio buzzed with static as Matt scanned through channels, landing on something else Eddie didn’t recognize. His heart was hammering, fury only building up in his chest when he got a good look at his poor scorched hot dog. Thunder rumbled overheard, Eddie thinking briefly he imagined it. 

“Hey,” came a small voice from next to him. Eddie picked his head up to find Myra looking up at him through her eyelashes, black with mascara. She held out her hot dog, now dressed in a bun on a paper plate. She’d been roasting it evenly for the past couple minutes, Eddie noticing her turning it meticulously at intervals out of the corner of his eye. He drew his elbows into his sides slightly. “Do you want mine?” 

“Oh—” he surprised himself when he grinned, heart rate not quite slowing but fluttering. “No, that’s okay—” 

“I’ll make you another one then,” Myra offered. “And I’m not taking no for an answer.” 

Eddie, somehow feeling a little stunned, silently agreed as Myra stuck another hot dog into the fire, brain feeling fuzzy. He slowly lowered his stick, head jerking up when Matt snapped his fingers. “Bring that thing over here if you’re not gonna eat it, Ed.” 

_Ed._ Eddie’s back tensed up again, throwing a look across the fire, grip tense on his stick. Without saying a word, he passed it over to Julie, who reached to hand it to Matt. He stuck it in a bun and set to devouring it, flicking a few crumbs at Ronnie who laughed. 

“I like George Michael,” Myra said, bringing him back to earth. “From Wham!.” Eddie felt hot and cold and hot and cold, a hot pan doused in cool water in the sink only to be thrown back on the stove a moment later. Myra’s voice was gentle and soothing, and Eddie cooled again when he looked down at her, turning the hot dog carefully at the edge of the flames. She beamed at him and Eddie felt his stomach jolt again, unable to hold her gaze. He glanced away, finding Julie smiling at him as well, which didn’t help the jitters running up and down his limbs. He quieted down, taking a few breaths to settle, trying to enjoy the crackle of the fire and the bugs and frogs sinking down by the water. 

_Think about it the right way, it’ll turn out fine,_ he thought, desperately getting a reign on his thoughts. _Just tread carefully._

Eddie managed to get one hot dog down, courtesy of Myra’s kindness, before the weather proved her right. They’d mostly finished eating and had really broken into the beers by the time the storm had become a real threat. Ronnie, Nancy, and Matt had taken up dancing around the beach, Julie joining in shortly to chase after Nancy when Matt decided it was more fun to pick Ronnie up and pretend to toss her into the water to get her to laugh and scream. Eddie and Myra were left alone, content with watching, the fire starting to die, and Eddie felt the weight of her head drop onto his shoulder at the same time he felt a raindrop splatter on the tip of his nose. He jumped, nearly choking on an apology when Myra immediately straightened up. She was also caught by the rain a moment later, looking up when a drop plunked into her hair, and stood up to call out to the rest of them fooling around on the rocky shore. 

They had minutes before the sky opened up, dumping buckets of Spring rain onto them and their fire and sending them scrambling to throw their cooler and towels into the golf cart. Eddie gave Myra the last seat and clambered into the rack at the back, forgoing the shelter of the roof to yank his hood over his head and cling onto the back of the slippery cart for dear life as they careened back up to the house. He frantically helped bring everything inside and caught a moment of stillness in Julie’s room, shifting through his backpack for a dry change of clothes. Julie, having just done the same, emerged from her bathroom with a towel for him. The rest of them were in other rooms and bathrooms, getting changed and ready to set out the mattresses in front of the fireplace in the living room. 

“You okay, bud?” 

Eddie was not. Eddie was still reeling, grateful for a moment away from everyone else. He found a tshirt and his sweatpants and pulled them out, sitting on the floor to tug off his soaked socks and hoodie. “For the most part,” he admitted, feeling jumbled.

Julie tossed the towel over his wet head and sat on the edge of her bed. “You look sad.” 

He scrubbed his hair for a second before pulling the towel off, looking at her. 

Julie was pouting sympathetically. “You always look like a puppy in an ASPCA commercial when you get all tangled up in your feelings, what’s wrong?”

He barked at a little laugh, hating the sad image it conjured up, even if she was right. “No, I’m fine, I’m just—” couldn’t be specifically honest, only vaguely— “overthinking some shit.” 

Seeming to know what he was on about, Julie snorted, swinging her legs. “There’s not much to overthink, dude.” 

Eddie stood up, furrowing his brow. 

“Just go for it,” she said, leaning in, stage whispering. 

“I don’t—” 

“Eddie Kaspbrak, if you play dumb about this I’m rolling you up in your sleeping bag tomorrow and dumping it in the lake.” 

“My God, do you have to threaten me about it?” He balled up his dry clothes for something to do with his hands, sighing. “I’m figuring it out, okay?” 

“You’ve been really tense since you came back from Chicago.” 

“Can I please change?” His voice just barely cracked. Eddie waved his ball of clothes at her, wanting an excuse to slip out, if even for a moment. 

Julie allowed it, flopping back onto her bed. Eddie changed quickly, avoiding his reflection as long as he could and only taking a second before slipping out to settle his hair. Julie was still lying prone on her bed, and she slowly extended her arms. Eddie gave in and collapsed next to her, throwing an arm over his chest and letting the other dangle off the side of the bed. Julie stuck her feet together, toes pointing up, and danced them side to side, nudging Eddie every rhythmically with her shoulder and ankle. He felt a grin tugging at his mouth, caving and doing the same silently until the bed started to creak, both of them snickering about it. 

“God, as if we need more rumors that we’re fucking,” Eddie sighed. 

“Ronnie and Matt are definitely getting busy in the bathroom downstairs, we’re fine.” 

Eddie grimaced, shaking his head. “I do not wanna think about that, thanks.” 

“How do you think I feel? It’s my parents’ place.”

“You could have asked Ronnie to maybe not screw around while we’re all here.” 

Julie shrugged, looking at Eddie. “I thought about it, but that would make me a hypocrite.” 

Eddie’s eyes widened, anxiety pulsing through his head for a second. He nearly sat up, weirdly scared that Julie was about to say or do something that would only confuse his already jumbled feelings further. 

Instead she gave him a guilty grin. “I definitely boned Rob Townsend when I brought him last year.”

“Seriously?” 

“Did you expect me to not?” 

“Not with a bunch of your friends sleeping in your living room, maybe?” Eddie couldn’t help but snicker about it, rolling a little to face her, comfortable again. “That’s bad form for a host.” 

Julie shrugged again, not feeling too bad about it. “Maybe you, sir, could stand to get laid.” 

Eddie stared at her, propping up on an arm, feeling himself go red for the millionth time that day. “With— Julie, there’s no fucking way.” 

“Are you really that dense?” 

“I’m not doing that here or now or—” Eddie shook his head, half horrified. “I’m not just going to jump into that with her, that’s just— that doesn’t feel right.” 

“But you do like her.” 

Eddie wanted to settle back down in bed, shoulder already sore from how he was holding himself up, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He looked away, remembering the fingers brushing, the hot dog gesture, the way his heart had jammed into his throat when she so quietly reassured him that maybe there was nothing wrong with being kind of into Wham!. How often he caught her staring when they were studying, the amount of times they’d lingered at the door of her dorm when he walked her home, just talking, how those little moments felt. Nervous, mostly, jumpy and in slight disbelief and definite denial. 

What was that if not liking her? Maybe he was just liking her at his own pace, and his pace was kind of slow. What was so wrong with that. 

Eddie sighed out through his nose, pushing his hair back. “I think I do.” 

“You _think_?”

“You do not understand how shit I am at this.” Eddie deftly avoided thoughts of the last time he’d been bold in any sort of venture like this. “And I’m not exactly used to being the object of anyone's— desires.” 

“You’re such a little weirdo.” Julie shook her head at him, reaching out to pinch a cheek. “But you’re a catch, I’ll tell you that.” 

He snorted at her, face screwing up. “That’s a real reach.” 

“You are, you’re cute.” 

Eddie felt a little sick, sinking his teeth into his lip before sitting up properly. “Julie, it’s— complicated.”

“It’s really not, dude, trust me.” 

“It is.” 

“Can you do one thing for yourself? Maybe? One time?” Julie looked at him in earnest, sitting up as well. “You’re a really good guy, Eddie, it’s not impossible for someone to like you. And she likes you, that’s pretty damn clear.” 

Eddie felt familiar shakes coming into his fingers. Electricity that danced in his hands when he caught Myra staring. Energy he couldn’t place and didn’t know what to do with. It mostly just made him feel queasy. 

Julie kindly stroked through his wet hair just once, patting him on the shoulder blade. “You think too hard about everything, just do something without thinking for once. Go with your gut.” 

He couldn’t avoid it then, the little flash in his brain, the little instance of doing something without thinking. The amber lighting in the hotel room, the clock radio, the fingers playing at the pins in the hem of his pants, the all of it. The being left alone afterward. “My gut gets me in trouble,” he muttered, feeling less and less like listening to it by the minute. 

“I don’t think I’ve seen you in trouble once the whole time I’ve known you, teacher’s pet.” 

Eddie opened his mouth to refute that, hating that statement, feeling it sting like a sunburn, but Julie was already standing up and starting for the door. 

“Let’s go pull Ronnie off of Matt and put a movie on, how’s that sound?” 

His stomach felt cold, empty despite the weight of that (quite frankly, perfectly cooked) hot dog settling heavily in the pit of it. Something like loneliness, a perfect lack of being understood. He’d kept his head down in college, sure, wanting to get it over with and be done with school as quickly as possible, but _teacher’s pet_? 

Julie had never seen him pitch a rock at a kid twice his size. She’d never seen him hide sneakers in the bushes outside his mom’s house so he could sneak out in his socks, having oiled the hinges on the front door while she was out at the grocery store. 

It sucked to come to terms with it, but Julie really didn’t know him either. 

Maybe that was his fault. Eddie was pretty sure he didn’t really _let_ anyone.

As Eddie had feared, spring break was nothing more than a pitifully brief series of days without having to attend school. Nothing else had eased up. If anything, he only grew more tense. 

He’d hardly slept the first night at the lake house, the sound of the storm soothing but interrupted by harsh flashes of lightning, thoughts stewing and rotting in his head. 

The second night he’d finally crashed, only to sleep restlessly. Each time he closed his eyes he saw the shore of the lake, pebbles and water lit only by full moonlight, hearing something breach the surface, dragging swollen waterlogged limbs out of the mud on the floor of the lake and back out into open air. Soggy footfalls, shoes never walked in dragging onto the shore, shimmering wet funeral attire. Eddie thought of Stan at some point, restless and half awake, asking if he’d been having nightmares. If he’d been talking in his sleep. Of Stan when they were kids, scared shaking, near tears, a story about the Standpipe, birdwatching in the rain gone wrong. Hazy things that drifted in and out of his brain, unable to separate dreams from waking thoughts. A big dog once, something in the woods, muzzle dripping with slobber. A black tie stuffed in the depths of his suitcase. Yellow notebook.

He hadn’t dreamed the third night, still tired when he woke up. Myra’s mattress was next to his; she was tucked away in her sleeping bag, one hand having dropped out and onto the floor, palm up, fingers curled softly, inviting. 

Julie hadn’t needed him much on the ride back, seeming to finally know the way, and Eddie had sat silently in shotgun, buzzing. The drive felt twice the length it usually did, like almost three hours of static. The broken radio in the golf cart flipping uselessly through channels it’d never reach in Eddie’s head. 

He arrived home to an empty apartment, Greg and Jeff off on their own breaks somewhere, maybe home, maybe somewhere else with other friends, maybe even together. There were voicemails left for him, litanies of betrayal and hurt, his mother’s scorned voice familiar and going numb to him as he clicked through the messages on the answering machine. Questions of why he didn’t come home. Why, when she knew they only ever spent a few days at the lake. Where else had he gone. Why hadn’t he come and visited his mother for at least a night. Lunch, was lunch so hard. Did he not want to come home. Did he not need her. 

Without calling back, trying to force himself to shut down despite the currents running through his veins, the stewing mixture of guilt and anger and confusion and frustration running hot through his bones, Eddie had settled in for the rest of his break. Settled in on the couch, in his bed, into pacing around the kitchen at all hours of the night, getting up and unable to sleep and fiending for a box of Kraft mac and cheese at 3AM. 

Jeff and Greg came back on the last two days of break, Jeff looking cheerful and sunburnt, Greg the next night looking hungover but ready to rally if need be. Eddie had then confined himself to his room, the A side of his Marvin Gaye album resting silently on the record player beneath his bed. 

Despite all his seemingly endless time spent sitting around and feeling sorry for himself, classes seemed to start abruptly. Eddie felt like he’d hopped onto a treadmill which was already cranked up to eleven, fighting not to trip over his own two feet. School and work and homework was suddenly stacked on top of the weights of his boiling over thoughts, cinder blocks piling on the crumbling foundation of Eddie’s stability. He was quicker to snap at his roommates, once throwing an empty beer bottle into the trash can hard enough to shatter it, taking out his anger on the trash always left out on the counter and coffee table. His notes were a mess in class, words scratched out, focus gone, unable to write down a complete sentence. He wasn’t sleeping well, wasn’t leaving his apartment, wasn’t studying with Myra or getting ice cream with Julie at the little shack a brief walk from campus as the weather warmed. He’d felt bogged down and overworked and stressed many a time before, but he’d never felt so cornered, and part of him knew it was his own fault. He was dying to talk to anyone, dying to call Stanley and tell him about the corpses walking up on the shore of the lake, call Bill and ask him how that novel draft was going, call Mike and tell him he missed him and wished they could have gone to college together too, call Richie and have anything feel remotely normal. All of those things felt impossible.

He had this last term of junior year, then one more year of undergrad. Then he was out, out to work or sink back into school and try for a master’s, which he hadn’t made a decision about yet. Time was rushing at him, and while his grades were fine (average, but he’d never been a quite 4.0 student), everything else felt like it was falling to pieces, and like it was his fault. There was plenty he could have done to reach out, to chill himself out, to _work something out_. He didn’t do anything. He let himself get worked up, he didn’t let himself work it out. 

Eddie masturbated mostly out of necessity. It wasn’t something he did when bored or lonely or drunk by himself, not any source of entertainment. It usually happened when he had a second of time and noticed he’d been overly stressed and persistently bothered, and it usually winded him down for a brief moment and gave him a second of clarity. He noticed if he gave himself a little time to beat off once a week or so, it chilled him out considerably, but putting a schedule on it felt weird. He tried to just do it when he needed to. Usually in bed when he couldn’t sleep or else got into bed early, sometimes on particularly rough mornings in the shower. This was preferable, as there was less cleanup, and Eddie had never quite come to terms with the horrible aftermath. The human body really was no temple and reproduction was no miracle. It was a sticky smelly sort of mess that Eddie typically tried to avoid, but simply couldn’t all the time. 

He once tried to simply stop altogether, but it hadn’t gone well. His road rage had never been the same. Neither had his fender. 

He hadn’t been able to consider so much as touching himself since coming home from Chicago. The urge simply hadn’t been there. He’d thought about it idly once in a tired morning shower, thinking it could help alleviate a little pressure at least for a few minutes, dose his brain with a little serotonin he’d seemingly been missing as of late. 

But as of late was Richie. As of late was spending a lot of time with Richie when he previously hadn’t been. That whole event in bed with Richie. Dancing with Richie. Kissing Richie. Things being different with Richie. 

Things being different. 

Eddie had first genuinely worried he was gay at a house party in late high school. There had been no hunk suddenly catching his eye, no drunken kiss with a close girl friend that left him feeling not right. It had been The Weather Girls.

In part, this was the source of his defensiveness when Matt had brought up his music taste, this was the same sinking feeling in his gut when he’d shared a knowing little glance with Ronnie when Julie had mentioned Donna Summer. 

It had been a guy at the party, laughing, not meaning any real hate or cruelty. He’d jokingly asked if Eddie was a faggot because he knew every word to ‘It’s Raining Men’. Because that song came on at the party and Eddie, not yet even drinking, was into it. Not quite dancing, but enjoying himself. He’d been dragged along by Greta, wasn’t having a great time, sitting alone in the living room with some kids he didn’t know from the high school in Bangor, and that little shot of familiarity had made him feel better for just a moment. A little levity. He loved that song. He really did. 

And he’d been asked if he was a faggot. 

_It’s a chick song, listen to the lyrics._

Eddie knew all the lyrics. 

Eddie realized in that moment with cold clarity that the lyrics involved wishing for the perfect man to fall out of the sky. 

Eddie somehow missed the connection all his life. 

Eddie heard somewhere that if you’re not gay, you don’t worry about possibly being gay. And Eddie was very worried then for a solid ten seconds, and he knew it showed on his face, then he laughed it off. His _mom_ loved that song, not him, he’d lied. Made him listen to it all the time as a kid. Single mom. Widow, yeah. Chick song. 

From then on out, Eddie only continued to worry. 

Despite swallowing it down the best he could—ignoring it, numbing it—he’d graduated from being _worried_ to being _petrified_ since the incident with Richie. It was one thing to deny why he knew the words to some song or another, it was something else entirely to deny why he’d pulled his best friend in by the shirt and kissed him on the mouth, why he’d wanted to so badly in the first place. 

Eddie was 21 and he’d never really had to fantasize to get off. In fact, he mostly embarrassed himself when he tried and had to stop. Usually just took a few deep breaths, focused on what felt good, spent a decent few minutes with himself, and did his business. Any time a fleeting image or sound or memory crossed his mind he’d wince and stop, forced to acknowledge that his hand was down his boxers. That was the worst. Acknowledging it. He tried to ignore it the best he could and lose himself for a little bit, clean up, go the fuck to sleep. 

He remembered Richie and Bill talking about it once, just talking about jacking off, guy stuff. Eddie had been mortified to be in the room, and he knew they were laying it on at least a little thick to make him squirm. To this day, he could hardly recall that memory without cringing. Richie talking about jacking off. That meant Richie jacked off. _Bill_ jacked off. Eddie knew it was almost something everyone did, but it was something most everyone politely ignored about each other. He didn’t like thinking about the fact that _he_ jacked off. But he still did it. 

Eddie started to reach a breaking point a week and a half into the semester. Some switch flicked in his brain, something desperate urging him to do _anything_ about the stress he was putting himself through, anything to shut his brain off for maybe five minutes and give himself one fucking break. On one random Thursday, he found himself thinking about jacking off all day. And that never happened. Sometimes, before all this mess, there was a passing thought here and there, but he never sat in class, pencil tapping rapidly, longing for the moment he could dash home and lock his door and put on a record loud as he could and ignore a lot of things for a little span of time. 

He felt hot and itchy, kept rubbing the back of his neck. The collar of his shirt was bothering him. Everything was bothering him. 

_He hadn’t talked to Richie about–_

_Myra—_

_The voicemails—_

_Nightmare—_

_Bill’s book—_

_He got in the taxi and didn’t say anything he just piled in and could have said anything could have looked him in the eye at least could have said one thing that said it was okay or would be okay if it wasn’t okay now and they’d be okay and he was sorry—_

It was settled. He just needed to jerk off. Unrelated. Stress relieving tactic. Clarity of mind. It was biology. Stress levels went down after orgasm. It helped. 

Eddie tended to put a little excess pressure on himself when he did nearly anything, and even this was no exception. There was a weird nagging fear that he’d give it a shot and not be able to get off, he’d be stuck endlessly in a frustrated loop with no hope of relief, physical or otherwise, he’d already busted his last nut, and that eventually the pressure of everything going on at once would crush him like a soda can demolished by the tons of oceanic pressure at the bottom the Mariana Trench. He’d figured out by then that not all wank sessions were created equal, and he’d been left generally still bothered and unsatisfied after forcing it a few times before. Sometimes it felt like work. He was worried about it, worried that even with the door shut and the lights off and the music on loud it wasn’t going to go well. Part of him knew why it was happening and all of him was rejecting it. 

Caught up in the rest of his day, Eddie couldn’t simply go home after class. His roommates were home, he knew that, he lingered outside the apartment. He’d gotten comfortable with doing it while Jeff and Gregory were home, but he couldn’t bring himself while they were out in the kitchen or living room. At least behind an extra set of doors in their rooms. So he had to wait until that night, until they either went out or went to bed. He holed himself up in the library the whole afternoon, trying not to think about it, it felt weird having to plan a time to jerk off, but there he was, trying and failing to read some book he’d snatched off the shelf at random instead of thinking about how he was thinking about jerking off. 

He’d never felt more antsy. 

When the time finally came, when Greg and Jeff were out of the way and Eddie was as comfortable as he was going to get with it that night (which was hardly at all), he humbled himself and whipped out the lotion and tissues, feeling cliche and none too pleased about it. He turned off all his lights and played whatever record was left on top of his player and clambered into bed, praying this wouldn’t end badly. Hoping, in fact, it would end at all. 

Eddie didn’t have a porno magazine. He didn’t have a favorite dirty movie scene. 

Eddie had one photo. It wasn’t something he kept for this purpose or thought about or even sought out to begin with, he just sort of came across it and had yet to get rid of the awful thing. It fell out of a _library book_ of all places when he was reading in bed earlier in the year and he’d automatically stuffed it in a drawer, mortified. He couldn’t bear to think what would happen if someone found it in the trash. He’d meant to burn it or carry it across campus to a dumpster and do away with it, but he was too scared to take it out of its hiding place. It in fact never really crossed his mind day to day, only invading his thinking space and embarrassing him all over again when he sifted past it looking for something else in his desk. 

The photo briefly crossed his mind as he tossed his shirt to the ground and lifted his butt to shimmy off his sweatpants. He didn’t wanna think about it any more. He didn’t wanna think at all. He wanted this over with, wanted that moment where his brain filled with blissfully numb static and he got thirty solid seconds of not caring about a single fucking thing. 

He was embarrassed by just how eager his body seemed once he was laying on top of his quilt in his boxers. He couldn’t see, but he could easily tell. Sighing at himself, he kicked the blankets down and got under them as if they could hide his shame. He steeled himself and pumped a dollop of lotion into his palm. It just moved things along. He hated the things he had to do. He hated having a physical form he had to cater to and manage and keep healthy and safe and, God forbid, satisfied. 

Eyebrows bunched, Eddie got started. Sometimes he liked the feeling of his boxers against the back of his hand, he didn’t know why. There didn’t really have to be a reason for it. The material was soft and cottony, the waistband put a smidge of pressure against his wrist as he rummaged around down there. He didn’t know. It was grounding, maybe. 

He was already thinking too much. Eddie was nervous about putting too much pressure on it going well tonight. He released a breath, thumbing at a spot he knew he liked and trying to focus on the creeping warm sensation running through him. He felt like he was focusing too hard. It felt like too much; he changed his angle a little and tried to force himself to relax. Unfortunately, being forceful and relaxing didn’t typically mix well. 

An image started to form in his head like a photo being pulled out of chemicals in a dark room. He stopped abruptly, eyes snapping open. He glanced left to right as if someone could see him, scolded himself for being ridiculous, then decided to lift up again and shimmy his boxers down. It wasn’t working with them on. 

Relax. Focus. Just touch. 

He started again, his pace was too fast, close to overwhelming himself and getting disinterested. He was only half hard. He was getting frustrated with himself, which wasn’t helping anything. 

An image came again. 

He stopped, face heating up. He felt warm but uncomfortably so, he wasn’t getting shit out of this. 

He thought about the drawer and the picture and pressed his lips together. 

He tried again. Tried to clear his head, tried to focus on nothing in particular, tried to let it go. 

He _felt_ Richie’s breath fan out against his cheek, the closeness of him without the barrier of his glasses, the tentativeness with which he slipped his fingers into Eddie’s hair and he nearly had a heart attack. 

He froze up, sweating, feeling almost a little sick. He felt like he might be scolded, felt like he was in trouble at school. He _hated_ it.

Anything. Anything was better than that. _That_ was admitting so much to himself. Anything was better. Getting the photo was only admitting one thing, and he was reaching a point where he was having trouble denying that thing anyway. In no way accepting it. Just saying fuck it and letting himself chill out for one night couldn’t hurt. Please, don’t let it hurt later. 

He rolled out of bed, kicking his boxers off his ankle. His room felt chilly now; he’d finally started to warm up. 

Eddie threw open the drawer with his clean hand, almost angry about it. That was the closest emotion, he felt mad. He felt generally upset and wound up and a lot. Too much. It was almost painful to actively be looking for it, to be pawing through his drawer in the dark for the one thing in his desk he only ever came across by accident and always wanted to get rid of every time he happened to catch a glimpse of it. 

He had to switch on a light. 

His bedside lamp had a soft glow, it wouldn’t be too bad. Not a harsh or damning fluorescent. He was going to have to keep it on to see the stupid thing, something he never did, but he was forced to come to terms with the fact that things were just a little different this time around. Eddie finally found it, text to some disembodied article on the back, the corners crinkled, paper flimsy and worn, old, and snatched it out of his drawer. Without looking at it, he clambered back into bed, his whole head feeling hot and stuffy. 

He repositioned under the covers and held the photo face down against his chest for a moment, steeling himself again before looking. 

His cheeks immediately bloomed with heat, but he forced himself not to look away. He forced himself to acknowledge what he was looking at, to make the photo exist in his hand and in his sight line. 

It was a clipping from a magazine. No popular one, that was to be sure. Looked to be from around the 70s, maybe, it was black and white. It was of two men. 

Eddie felt again as if he was going to be scolded. He wanted to feel nauseous, and he felt his stomach squirm, but it wasn’t like being sick. He closed his eyes against it, fighting it, one foot bobbing uselessly and excitedly under the covers. 

He was hot between the legs and sweating at the back of his neck and he hated it. 

The photo didn’t look back at him, for which he was grateful. It was just bodies, he reminded himself. No faces. Torsos, legs, arms, the back of a head. A dark, shaggy head. 

Eddie put the photo back on his chest and let his other hand venture back downward, eyes squeezed shut. The image from the photo lingered in his mind. He touched himself lightly and made a sound, pressed his lips together. Quiet. The music was still playing, but he still needed to be quiet about this. For his own sake. He readied himself and took his dick in his hand, stroking himself idly. 

He knew this was going to work. He was dreading it. 

He took another look. This was the longest he’d ever allowed himself to look at the damn thing. 

One man, sitting upright on his knees on a bed, wore black shorts. They looked the same material as Eddie’s, same color. His body was tan and lean, a tattoo of something Eddie couldn’t quite make out stood out black against his hip. His arms were long and wound with muscle, one hand placing a light touch in the other man’s hair. 

The other man’s head was tucked against the first one’s hip, sitting rather than kneeling. His nose, which Eddie couldn’t see from the angle, would be even with the waistband of the black boxers. The waistband which obviously angled downward in the front. Eddie didn’t need a degree to understand what was going on there. He’d known the moment he saw it, flinging it away quickly the instant it registered in his brain. 

The man sitting on the bed wore grey boxers. His body was more lithe, Eddie could see a rib lightly outlined under a thinner layer of muscle. His back was curved gently forward, angled, Eddie could see both his shoulders, only a sliver of the far one. His skin was lightly freckled, his hair a little unruly. It looked clean and soft. It was in little tufts between the other man’s fingers. 

Eddie shivered, closed his eyes, doing his best not to fight the warmth finally creeping up his spine. He was giving himself even strokes, much more lax than usual. He usually tried to get himself off and over with as quickly as possible, which was sometimes none too kindly. 

He felt good, which felt bad, but he couldn’t focus on it too much at the moment. Not when he was finally getting somewhere. 

When he risked another look at the photo, he noticed he was flushed down his chest, red splotches speckling his skin. This was why he didn’t do this with the lights on, he didn’t want to think about the fact that he was actually present for the act. It sucked having to actually see his own body involved. 

Looking back to the photo, Eddie noticed a detail he’d overlooked. His brain felt fuzzy, heavy. The man with the dark hair and the grey boxers was sitting with his knees slightly bent, straddling the legs of the man in black, and Eddie could just see the tip of his erection straining at his grey boxer shorts over the curve of his thigh. 

Eddie put the photo down, his breathing elevating. He had to slow down a little, head tipping back slightly. He was turned on, he almost marveled. He hadn’t felt actually turned on at all even the last couple times before this whole problem had started, merely working his body to finish and moving on with his day. Fuck, he actually felt good. He actually, physically, felt good. Kind of a new feeling. 

Mentally, he was reeling, but he had to quiet that again for the sake of this. For the sake for a break from reeling, for fuck’s sake. 

He looked again. He just had to get off. He was just getting off, there weren’t even any faces in the picture. The kneeling man was cropped above the neck. The other man’s face was obscured. There weren’t even any dicks, not really, it wasn’t graphic. Just that little tent and the indication of what was going on. This was softcore shit, this was nothing, this was fine. 

_Do you get hard while giving a blowjob? Do guys get hard while they’re doing that to someone else?_

He’d never considered that. He didn’t know why it struck him like it did. 

He controlled his breath as he let out a slow sigh so as not to make too much sound, turning it into a swear under his breath. He couldn’t stop focusing on the place where one man’s cheek met the other man’s hip. His hands looked so light on his thighs, almost framing him. Eddie felt lightheaded. 

Eddie felt the sensory memory of Richie’s hands so hesitantly and carefully settling on his biceps and holding him, and he, in reality, felt his knees open up as his brain resisted. Focus on the picture, not whatever was slipping into the cracks of his failing composure. The _picture._

_God, God if he touched me like that I think I’d just die. I think I’d just fucking die right there._

He’d made the connection and there was no going back. The tragic fact of finally getting into this, finally letting the hormones swamp his brain and eat away at whatever careful mental blocks he’d been tending to for years, meant that thoughts he'd usually never allow were coming in in droves. Eddie was wondering, increasingly curious now, if Richie got freckles on his shoulders. He got them on his face sometimes in the summertime. Not as many as Eddie himself, not as dark, but they were there if you looked hard enough, if Richie wasn’t sunburnt and was still pale enough to pick them out. Never noticed them on his shoulders, but maybe they were there. The thought endeared him in a strange way. He lifted his hips on accident and let out a rough breath, inching down in the sheets a little to keep from banging his head on the wall behind him. 

It was just the picture doing this to him. 

The _hair._

Eddie couldn't believe the clarity with which the camera had captured his hair. It looked unbelievably soft despite the grain in the photo. The way the other man cradled his head was so tangibly tender, there was nothing rough or demanding about it. Just holding him, just a presence. Eddie hummed and fought against thoughts, losing out again. 

His hair was dark and soft and had just a hint of curl and it really could be the back of Richie’s head. That body couldn’t be Richie’s body, the other absolutely could never be Eddie’s, but the back of that head could be Richie’s and Eddie was fixated on it. 

He’d never had a blowjob, he’d turned down an offer once sophomore year and nearly screamed aloud thinking about it sober the next day. She was a very nice and sort of drunk girl and she’d said she had a crush on Eddie, knew him from class, and Eddie had gotten very close to going through with it before his brain rioted and sent him running for the door, yanking his pants up and prattling any number of apologies and thinking only of racing home absolutely immediately. 

But he _wanted_ to know he wanted to feel that. More sensory thoughts of lips and tongue fell into place in his head, the heat of a mouth, and he let his head tip back again, Adam’s apple pointing up toward the ceiling. His shoulders drew together, he mumbled. 

Oh, God. It was a horrible and sickeningly pleasurable thought, someone’s mouth on him like that. It disgusted him as much as intrigued him, _God it must feel so good it’s probably so awful but god god it must feel so so good._ Sex in general seemed like just about one of the nastiest things two people could possibly do with each other, but somehow Eddie had managed to mangle his brain into thinking it maybe might not be all that bad in this state. A lot didn’t seem all that bad like this. 

He was losing reign on where his thoughts were scattering. He held the photo tight to his chest. He’d memorized it by then. He’d tried to memorize the way it felt when Richie was kissing him, maybe somehow knowing it was going to come to an untimely end, wanting to hold onto it, hold onto any sensation he could. He’d touched his hair before, sure, tugging to tease him, usually, but he wanted to hold his head like that. It was such a savage simple thought but he wanted to cradle his head like that and feel locks of his hair between his fingers and 

_Jesus I know what his mouth feels like he kissed me he just kissed me but we kissed for a while and I felt his mouth and his hands and I got to hold him too and if he touched me like that I really think I’d die and fuck fuck I know what his mouth feels like—_

His hips lifted again, pressing upward hard into his hand. His hair was damp at the back of his neck with sweat. He wished the lights were off. His brain was dimming; he was slipping fast toward the end. 

His thoughts honed in for a split second on a few key details. The freckles on the shoulders. The soft, barely audible sound Richie had made when Eddie settled his hands on his waist for a passing moment. The little fumble of trying to fit themselves together, awkwardly placing hands on each other until it felt nothing short of perfectly natural. The exact warmth of Richie’s lips mouth 

Forgetting the photo altogether, Eddie clutched at his pillow with his free hand and pressed it up toward his mouth just in case, only making one low groan, unlike himself completely, as he bucked into his grasp, aiming up to his chest so as not to ruin his blanket. His breath rushed out of him and rushed back in and he sighed, weighty and full. A fresh wave crashed over him, rolling through all his nerves, parting his knees, curling his toes. His back clicked pleasantly when he arched up, holding there for a moment as the last few seconds of his climax rode out, and then he settled into the sheets, panting lightly, misted with sweat. He could feel it run down the backs of his knees, uncomfortably hot under the blanket.

It only took a second for him to toss the photo onto his desk and throw his cool arm over his hot face, humming and feeling his face scrunch up. 

There was no taking that back. 

He burned with shame, mixing like oil with water with the afterglow settling over him. Eddie pressed his thighs together and rolled to one side, still covering his eyes with his arm, unbelievably calm. 

Release was such a good, if gross, word for it. That was a release of all kinds of tension, but he hadn’t wanted that journey of self discovery that had come with it. 

His main goal was not to cry, pathetic as that sounded. Some vulnerabilities had been exposed, he was perched on a delicate precipice with the hormones clouding his brain; there was a definite risk. He refused to cry with his own jizz on his chest. His hand was still pressed between his legs, his dick warm and soft between his palm and thigh. He extracted his tense hand and pulled his knees up a little, grimacing. 

“Shower,” he decided aloud. 

But he didn’t want to get up. He wanted to lay there, stupid, shameful, warm and really, genuinely glowing, for a few moments more. 

And when he finally got up, he was determined to forget. He and Richie had kissed, _just kissed_ , and it was enough to bring him to. 

That. 

Enough to get him off.

And that was something he had to forget if he wanted to hang on to any scrap of his sanity. 

_(Humidity is rising)_

_(Barometer’s getting low)_

He heaved himself out of bed and into the bathroom on wet pasta legs, dodging his reflection. He couldn’t deal with that right now. He knew he was still starry eyed and flushed, he knew his hair was sticking up in the back. 

_(Tall...dark and lean)_

He turned on the water, soothed momentarily from the sound, which drowned out the scratch of the needle on the center of the record in his room. He closed his eyes, feeling oddly weak. Exhausted in a deeper way. Bone tired, overly relaxed, _worn._

There was an emotional toil to be reckoned with as well, he guessed. 

_(Hallelujah)_

He stepped into the shower, water lukewarm, tried not to think. 

He thought. 

_(Half past ten)_

He stood loosely under the stream, letting the water warm up against his back. He’d clean up in a second. He needed to center himself. This could mean nothing if he thought about it the right way. 

He just had to think about it the right way. He could convince himself of just about anything if he really tried hard enough. The sky could be green and grass could be blue in Eddieworld. 

_(For tonight for the first time)_

When the water was manageable, Eddie turned toward the stream and frantically rinsed his hands and face, scrubbing himself down hurriedly. 

_(For the first time in history)_

He pressed his face into his hands, breathing out shakily as cold acceptance threatened to sink down into his bones. He fought it with all he could. He fought quietly. He refused to cry, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t. 

_(Hallelujah)_

He would not cry 

_(Amen)_

They’d just kissed 

_(Dark and lean)_

That was all he’d needed 

_(Have we got news for you)_

He’d managed to hide the photo for so long

_(Better listen)_

He knew exactly what was going on 

_(Leave those umbrellas at home)_

He knew, he’d known

_(Get ready, all you lonely—_

Eddie slammed a fist against the tile of the shower wall, something so out of character he scared himself. He stared at the tile, intact, then shook his hand out. That hurt. 

It hurt. 

Why had he done that. That was stupid. 

It all hurt like novocaine wearing off before the dentist was done. Numb and creeping and cool, wretchedly cool, then so vivid and sharp. Eddie cranked off the water and stood there, shaking the moment the excess heat was gone from him. He was clean, relatively, and empty. Shaking. 

_(Absolutely soaking wet)_

Eddie clambered out of the tub and clutched for his towel, scarcely toweling his hair off before tossing it to the floor and rushing toward his bed. He sort of slicked himself off with his hands, shaking off the excess water from his fingertips onto the carpet before clambering back under the covers. They stuck to him in places. He tugged his blankets over his side as he rolled over and tucked himself in, breathing hard and fast through his nose. 

He was still sleepy and heavy, despite the frantic pulse in his wrists and throat. 

_He slept with you in this bed, you fell asleep on him in this bed, you touched each other like that, and now you just_ –

Eddie muffled a yell into his pillow, hands fisted in it. He tucked his knees up and tried to ignore his entire body, tired to ignore the sheets dampening around him as they wicked warm shower water away from his skin. He was going to be freezing cold come morning, shivering and miserable. 

He’d probably catch a cold. 

Fine. So be it. 

Eddie didn’t cry, in the end. He laid awake, feeling generally sorry for himself, aching inside. Aching in such a way he’d never felt, experiencing some horrible kind of longing he felt was unfair for any human to undergo. 

They needed to talk about it so bad. 

He never wanted to see Richie ever again. 

He needed him back in that bed so bad, he needed him asleep with him on the couch. 

He wondered distantly why his needs and wants never fucking lined up. 

The next morning, Myra opened the door to West Hall 129 a second time to Eddie Kaspbrak, this time looking tired and humbled, clutching a small bouquet, fumbling over himself and intending to ask her on a date. Yes, a real date, him and her, if— if that was alright with her, of course. 

A girl really liked him, and he’d decided to like her back. 

The Weather Girls be damned. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> songs mentioned:  
> Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice  
> (obviously) It’s Raining Men - The Weather Girls
> 
> everyone's made the mistake of getting hyped for Under Pressure and getting blue balled by Vanilla Ice. we are but human


	16. RICHIE SLOWLY APPROACHES HIS WIT'S END

**19 MARCH 1997**

**WILLARD, MISSOURI**

**10:02 PM**

Richie shut off his engine, and therefore his radio, expecting the usual stillness of his street and the hum of bugs in his backyard. 

What he got was Cat Stevens, crooning from behind the house, and the sound of his mother laughing. 

As of late, Richie had gotten into a habit of idling in his car before going inside every time he pulled up to his house, sitting for maybe a half hour at a time when all he really wanted to do was go inside and strip off his powdered sugar covered uniform and fall face down into bed, but despite the long drive back from Chicago, Richie didn’t take a moment this time to hesitate behind the wheel. He’d had enough time to think himself into a pit on the way, enough time to wallow, and a shower and maybe half a frozen pizza scavenged from the garage fridge would do him some good. 

Numbly tossing his bag over his shoulder, he started for the garage, stopping in his tracks when he heard his mom cackle again. Increasingly curious, he paused and turned toward the fence surrounding their small backyard, quietly peering around the side of the house to find the silhouettes of his parents situated in the wicker chairs on the back patio, washed in amber light spilling out the kitchen doors. He braced a shoulder against the siding, straining his ears but unable to hear them chatting over the radio his dad had set out beside them. Now would have been a good time to slip inside unnoticed, go to bed and come up with some excuse for the fucked up face for the breakfast table the next morning, but Richie found himself just standing there, half fascinated. His dad reached into a bag at his side and tossed something onto the patio. Richie then spotted Eleanor, who had also apparently decided to join them, rolling around at his mom’s feet. Maggie waved a cigarette between two fingers, one leg crossed over the opposite knee, foot bobbing. At one point, she reached forward and tapped Went’s knee and he laughed, rolling his head back for a moment before mock impatiently gesturing for her to pass the cigarette. 

_(“—there’s a million ways to go, you know that there are—”)_

Back aching from the drive, tired mind quietly begging he go inside and get comfortable already, Richie stood captivated, chest oddly tight as he watched his parents. Eleanor batted at his dad’s shoelace and he toed at her broad belly, making her chatter, making his mom laugh again. The fireflies were finally back, blinking by the willow tree, flitting around the rope swing on the old oak that had been there long before they’d ever moved in. Richie distributed his weight between the corner of the house and the fence, relaxing, deciding there were worse things than standing there for a moment to drink it in. As badly as he’d always wanted to break the pace of his upbringing and pack his bags for the nearest city that would take him, after Chicago, he could stand feeling settled for five minutes at home. He took a deep breath, smelling rain he must have missed and sweet grass, smoke—

Richie’s nose wrinkled, eyes snapping open. The warm breeze carried on it both the promises of Spring and a strange, skunky kind of smell Richie was, admittedly, a little too familiar with. He leaned a little further over the fence, hearing the old wood just barely creak. His dad passed back the “cigarette”, which now definitely looked too thick and uneven to be anything out of any one of the many Marlboro packs one could find stashed around the Tozier house. All three of them knew the others smoked, but Richie tried to hide it from his parents as much as they tried to hide it from him. He’d seen both his parents sneak a smoke time and time again but never mentioned it, and they were, in turn, kindly oblivious to the occasional tobacco stain on his fingers. 

But all his life, Richie had never caught Went and Maggie sharing the same cigarette. 

No fucking way. 

Backpack on one shoulder, Richie stepped clean over the low gate, stomping through the grass and around the scrubby bushes into a sliver of light spilling out of the doors. 

His mom caught sight of him first, instantly clutching at her chest and slapping his dad’s outstretched hand, offering her the joint. “ _Wentworth—_ ”

“Alright, kids,” Richie started, planting his hands on his hips. “I can excuse being out after curfew, but smoking _dope?_ ” He shook his head despite the weird sort of trill pressing on the inside of his ribcage, traitor grin on his face. This was too rich. “I expected more out of you two.” 

Maggie glanced around wildly, looking for an excuse and failing to find one. 

His dad, who had cleverly decided holding the joint back over his shoulder would effectively hide it, opened his mouth to defend himself, only to break down into coughing. This set Maggie off into another bout of laughter, trying to wave Richie off. 

Richie barked a laugh, in slight disbelief. “Are you guys fucking _kidding_ me?” 

“Don’t c—” Went hacked into a fist, shoulders shaking. “Don’t curse in front of your mother—” 

“He just caught us red handed, honey, now’s not the time to lecture him,” Maggie said, holding her hands up in mock surrender. 

Richie stared between the two of them in disbelief. “Are you at least going to share?” 

“No,” Went said immediately. 

“Absolutely not,” Maggie said on top of him, giggling despite herself. 

Gawking, Richie glanced down to Eleanor, who, oddly enough, hadn’t had a thing to say on the subject. “Did you know about this and not tell me?”

Eleanor peered back up at him from where she lay on her back on the porch, giant gold eyes blown and perfectly circular. Richie scooped her up, hearing her lightly grumble, ears sticking straight up, hardly noticing. “Is she— did you get the fu— the cat stoned?” Richie’s voice cracked with a disbelieving laugh, his poor cat putty in his arms.

“It's catnip, don’t pitch a fit,” Went said, picking up the radio he’d knocked over with his foot when Maggie had startled. Richie then spotted the bag his dad had been pulling from on the chair next to him. Catnip treats, surely enough. “Supposed to get ‘em wired, but she just gets lazy.” 

“She’s getting old, don’t be mean.” 

“You’ll share with the cat, but not with your son?” Richie shook his head, tucking Eleanor on one arm against his chest. “I’m hurt. I’m also— I don’t even know what else I am right now. This is _incredible_.” 

“Catnip is cheap, Rich.”

“You weren’t supposed to come home until tomorrow night,” his mom pointed out, still trying to talk her way out of this, to no avail. 

“No, I was only there two nights.” He looked between them, dumbfounded. “Do you guys do this often?” 

“You must be exhausted, honey, why don’t you g—” she paused, mouth half open.

Richie raised his eyebrows, imploring her to finish, thinking she was just high enough to lose her train of thought, but Maggie made a serious face and cocked her fingers toward herself. 

“Come here.” 

“What?” 

“Come _here_ , Richard.” 

A full Wentworth _and_ a full Richard in one night always smelled trouble. Richie remembered his face and felt his heart beat kick up a notch a split second before she placed her hands on his jaw and brought him down to face level, mouth dropping open. 

His upper hand could only last so long before he was the one in trouble again, it seemed.

“Richie, what the _fuck—_ ”

“I _said_ don’t curse in f—” Went pulled the joint, which he’d decided to take another hit off of, out of his mouth. He blinked, looking at Maggie. “Oh, sorry, I thought that was him again—” 

“We don’t sound that much alike,” Richie said, trying to back out of her grasp.

“Yes, you do, it’s almost embarrassing.” 

“You’re _stoned_ ,” he protested, hoping maybe this would also distract Maggie. “She even said my _name—_ ”

“Does anyone else see this?” Maggie insisted, shaking Richie’s head lightly, not letting go. “Went, tell me you see this.” 

Went pushed his glasses up his nose and squinted. His eyes widened, mouth dropping open. “What the hell happened?” 

Richie was struggling to hold onto Eleanor, who had seemingly fallen asleep in his arms and was in danger of dripping like molasses into Maggie’s lap. She didn’t release her grip on his chin. “You know,” he ventured, “I’m not really comfortable speaking to my parents while they’re under the influence, I think this would better be discussed when everyone is in a sound state of mind—” 

Went gave him a look which promptly shut him up. “Did you get punched? What did you say?” 

Richie finally stood up, throwing his free arm out in exasperation. Eleanor’s tail swung limply. “Why is it always something I said? Can a man not get beat up for looking stupid or being in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

“Well, were you just in the wrong place at the wrong time?” Maggie stretched her arms up to receive the cat. 

Richie pressed his lips together, handing Eleanor over and crossing his arms. He sighed, deflating slightly. “No, it was something I said.”

Went raised his eyebrows.

“A lot happened, okay?” He scuffed a clump of wet grass off his sneaker on the patio, disturbing the little pile of catnip treats. “If you guys want me out of your hair, let me actually get out of your hair and take a damn shower, alright?” 

Went tipped his head toward his wife. “Touchy.” 

She cocked an eyebrow. “Clearly.” 

After a few more directionless questions which Richie refused to answer, his parents finally released him to go inside, still looking a little cagey about finishing their joint on the patio. Richie was still a little baffled, having a few questions himself, but he if he did anymore deep thinking that night he swore his brain was going to start melting like hot jam out of his ears. His shower consisted mostly of standing with his head tipped back into the hot water, letting it beat out some of the tension he was carrying in his shoulders. He stuck a bandaid over the bridge of his nose after washing his face at the sink, the cut there irritated by his glasses the whole drive home. He looked cartoonish, all black and blue and barely bandaged up, but he let his reflection go after a moment, beyond tired of looking at it. 

His mom (and the cat, who seemed to have recovered and was her usual alert self) checked on him once before heading to bed, finding him sprawled on his bed in the dark, fighting for sleep that didn’t want to cooperate. Maggie quietly left a bag of frozen peas on a plate on his nightstand for him, in case he wanted to try and help the bruising at all, and kindly left the questions for the next morning. 

He left out 90 percent of the details, talking mostly to his cereal bowl and orange juice, leaving it to having overheard someone badmouth Beverly and getting maybe a little too passionate about it. He only received a short word of advice about handling that better next time from his dad before he had to get dressed for work, which he was grateful for. Richie had the rest of the day off to try and collect himself after the events of the weekend, receiving his promised call from Beverly and reassuring her he got home alright, earning no updates on her situation. Nothing new, she promised. 

“I’m still worried about this schnoz of yours,” Maggie said that evening, cupping Richie's jaw again in one hand. He held still for a moment before turning his head out of her grasp, glancing back down at the stalks of asparagus he’d been chopping for her. “You’re sure it’s not broken?” 

‘Girls on Film’ was playing on the kitchen radio. Maggie had been ecstatic to stumble across a station playing Duran Duran. 

“Eddie said it wasn’t.” 

Her expression softened. “Eddie patched you up?” 

“Yeah. He said he didn’t need to set it, it wasn’t broken. I was already this ugly to start.” 

She shook her head, giving him a scolding look for that last comment. “I still might send you down to Dr. Ward to get you checked out after work tomorrow.” Richie could tell she was dying to say more about the whole situation, but trying desperately to let Richie be an adult and handle his own problems when he could. Dropping her hand and returning to her patch of counter where she was zesting a lemon, checked him lightly with her hip. “How’s Eddie doing?”

Of all the times to mention Eddie. Richie had hardly even mentioned his trip to New York in November since being home, but there was Eddie’s name at the front of his mind and mouth when it came to actually having something to hide. His throat ran a little dry. “He’s good.” Richie scooped up a handful of chopped asparagus and dumped it into a bowl, pulling a few more stalks from the sink to set them on the cutting board. “His mom’s still driving him crazy.” Richie looked up to her carefully, gauging her reaction. 

Maggie kept her face even, only pausing for a second. A hum. “Nothing new on the Sonia front, then?” 

“She’s not dead yet, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“ _No_ ,” she squawked, almost a little too defensive. Richie couldn’t help but smile. 

It was no secret, at least among the mothers of Derry, that Sonia Kaspbrak and Maggie Tozier didn’t quite see eye to eye on practically any given subject. Richie had once asked his father if he’d ever met Frank Kaspbrak, who’d died long before Richie (or Eddie, for that matter) really had any sense of cognitive memory, and Went said he knew him at one point, but he hadn’t left much of an impression on him. The same was certainly not true when it came to Sonia.

Richie had always taken some amount of pride in being Sonia’s least favorite of Eddie’s friends. Maggie took pride in defending her son, and, on the off occasion, Eddie himself, to Eddie’s mother when they were younger. When they’d lived in Derry, Maggie had always made a point to make sure Eddie felt at home on the off chance that he was able to stay with them. Most often it was just for lunch here and there, sleepovers an extreme rarity. She’d done the same for Bill time and time again, and the few times Beverly had stopped by, although she’d seemed a little baffled when it came to handling a little girl as opposed to the bullpen of boys she’d grown accustomed to tearing up her kitchen. Stanley had always baffled her as well. Went had once told Richie that Maggie had desperately wanted a girl when they first found out she was pregnant, but that she’d grown to be endlessly grateful to have Richie as he got older. _You, son, can’t get your heart broken by some snot nosed teenage boy she’d have to track down and kill_ , Went had once said on the subject. _Or get pregnant out of wedlock._

“I don’t wish _death_ on the woman,” Maggie said, voice a little higher pitched than usual. She lifted a shoulder casually. “Maybe just some irritating ailment. Bunions, maybe.”

“Oh, you’re _evil_ ,” Richie said, grinning. 

“Maggie flicked lemon zest in his direction. “So Eddie’s doing okay, how’s Jaws?” 

Jaws was Stanley’s unfortunate household name there, on account of having bitten Went once when he was trying to pull a tooth. He still couldn’t look Richie’s father in the eyes, despite Went’s thinking it was absolutely hilarious. He hadn’t drawn blood, merely broken the glove, but Stanley still felt bad about it. It wasn’t his fault that his friend’s dad was the only credible dentist in town and that Stan happened to not be very fond of hands in his mouth at age nine. 

“Stanley,” Richie said, chopping down on a stalk with a certain amount of force, “apparently has a serious girlfriend.” 

Maggie was silent for a moment. Richie looked up at her, finding her looking down at her lemon, eyebrows raised. 

“What?” 

“You just said that in some type of way. And I think you may have gotten a little brutal on that asparagus just then.” 

Richie frowned. “I didn’t—” he sighed, chopping a little lighter. “He’s been dating her for a while and didn’t tell m— us.” His face burned. 

“Didn’t tell _you_ , huh?” 

“It’s not like that, he didn’t tell any of us. He just sprung her on us in Chicago.” 

Maggie gave him a knowing look. “I get it, kid. You two were always really close. That kind of thing can be hard.” 

“I’m trying not to be an ass about it.” 

“Did you like her?” 

Richie thought about it. Patty was a little quiet, sure, he wished he’d had a little more time to get to know her maybe, and a lot more time to catch up with Stan, but. “Stan really likes her, that much was clear.” Maggie was quiet, and Richie took another breath. “I am happy for him.” 

“There you go, you’re not being an ass about it.” She moved around him to rinse her hands in the sink, dried them, then ruffled up Richie’s hair. “Anything else bugging you?” 

Boy, was there ever. Richie finished up chopping the last of the asparagus, setting the knife down, wishing he had something else to occupy his hands with. He could feel his mother searching his face. She was trying to be cool about the bashed in nose and all, but Richie couldn’t blame her for worrying. He’d been honest as he could be about it, but there was more about the trip he really couldn’t say. 

When he was quiet, still thinking if there was a good way to say anything, she accidentally struck another nerve. “You said Bill finally made it this time, how is he?” 

Richie threw his head back. “ _Fuck_ , Bill.”

_Mike yanked him aside when Bill had gone upstairs after the Kay incident, leading Richie to the ice machine at the end of the hallway by the vending machines, head already spinning enough._

_“We need to have a talk about Bill.”_

_Richie wanted a nap, maybe, and the ice didn’t sound all that bad. He looked at Mike with sheer exhaustion, guilty to admit he wanted to do nothing of the sort at the moment. “Mikey, man, I really need a fucking break from this weekend, can you call me about it later?”_

_Mike was persistent, having swapped notes with Bill over the weekend about his coming novel, but apparently things had progressed beyond that. Mike had been keeping his own journal, which he wanted to show Richie, but which Richie wanted to part in. Something was severely off, Mike said. Off in Bill’s draft, off in his own notes._

_“He said the two of you stayed at a motel—”_

_“And we both had some fucked up dreams, yeah, Mike, it happens. He and I definitely smoke too much for our own good—”_

_“That’s not the extent of it, Richie, and you need to read this draft of his.”_

_Richie had already told Bill as kindly as he could that he wasn’t into the horror shit at the moment and didn’t want to get into it with Mike._

_He’d bickered with him, which he still felt bad about, but he was already at the end of his rope for the week. He’d promised to call soon, and to check in on Bill, and to get a copy of his draft and look into it, and to maybe have Mike fax him some of his own supposed notes he was keeping about fuck knows what, and Richie was loath to admit that he had little intention to complete at least that last two tasks._

“What’s wrong?” 

Already feeling terrible all over again about it, Richie pushed his glasses up into his hair and rubbed his face, shaking his head. Maggie didn’t press, but made room for him to at least rinse his own hands before he got vegetable juice in his eyes. “A lot, actually, if I’m gonna be honest.” 

Richie knew his parents had always worried about Bill to some degree, had always tried to make sure he got dinner or had a table to do homework on or at least a place to get a little parental attention he’d been lacking since 

_Georgie_

but he really wasn’t sure how to address the issue now that they were all adults. Went getting Bill a new Batman lunchbox when his had broken wasn’t exactly doing to fix much nowadays.

“Is he okay? Does he need—” 

“He’s just— going through some stuff, I think, Mom, I don’t know.” Richie shook his head, words falling out of his mouth, one hand braced hard against the counter. “That and the Stan girlfriend thing and the whole deal with that guy and Bev and then Eddie and I— had— a disagreement. Kind of thing.” His words stilted a little, eyes flickering to the clock on the wall. His dad wasn’t due home soon for another half hour, but he felt oddly pressured to wrap up this conversation, despite having just thrown it for another loop.

Maggie held her hands up, blinking at him, trying to be patient. “One thing at a time, speedy.” 

Richie hated that he felt like a little kid again, standing in the kitchen where he grew up, talking to his mom like she could solve every problem in the world, but now knowing that wasn’t the case. Knowing he had to handle certain things on his own here and that some of them he just couldn’t do much about, and he bit into the inside of his cheek, trying his best to think before talking again. 

“You and Eddie had a fight?” 

“It wasn’t a _fight_ ,” he breathed, ready to talk his way out of this. It definitely wasn’t a fight, but it was just as potentially friendship-ruining, mostly due to Richie’s bright idea to run out without a second thought and to then avoid Eddie like he was the plague. That had probably made him feel real great about himself, and he was probably back at school thinking Richie despised him for it, and honestly, maybe Richie was a little frustrated about it, but mostly because of how much of a fucking surprise it had been and how it came out of absolutely nowhere and if he’d known and had time to think it through— “Just— we’ll be fine.” 

“You don’t wanna talk about it?” 

“No.” 

“You talked about it with him yet?” 

Richie shook his hands out. “I— have actually very _tactfully_ avoided it—” 

Maggie’s look stopped him in his tracks.

His shoulders slumped. “You know I’m lying.” 

“You’re being painfully transparent, sweetheart.” 

That made him nervous before he remembered she was seeing through the _tactful_ part and not the _fight_ part. That _kissing_ event was definitely not a _fight_ , but _tactful_ ? _Tactful_ was about as far from the truth as it could get. It was thankfully reasonable to believe Richie had gotten into a spat with one of his friends, less believable to think that he and Eddie had— all that, but almost impossible that he was tactful about nearly anything. Richie swallowed, checking the clock again. “Should I put some water on the stove for the pasta?” 

“Yes, but you should probably make a couple phone calls after dinner too.” 

“I—”

“Just my humble advice, hon, things are much better talked out and on the table, awkward as it can be.” She patted him between the shoulder blades as he moved to grab a pot from the cabinet. “I’d hate to see you lose a friend over being too scared to talk through something. You’ve never had a problem with talking before.” 

She was grinning, it wasn’t meant to hurt, but Richie couldn’t help but give her a look. “This is exactly why I wanna move out.”

“Even when you’re getting free food and sage advice?” She tapped his cheek. “There are worse deals, Richie.” 

While in the groggy process of dragging himself out of bed at 6:30 the next morning, Richie wondered why he hadn’t given himself one extra day off before returning to the donut shop. 

He was glad, however, to have less time to stew and think. If he was occupied with work, occupied with helping his mom get the herb garden she’d started back up in the backyard, occupied with anything but being alone with his thoughts, that would be enough. He’d even pick up his guitar again to keep his fingers busy, worried otherwise they’d find 9-1-7 on the kitchen phone’s keypad and his mouth would go off on something he couldn’t control and he’d be seriously fucked. 

Distraction was a vital tool. 

“You look a little worse for wear, must have had a good time on vacation. Glad to be back at work?”

Richie rolled his eyes. “Could use a fuckin' smoke break, but I’m holding up.”

Kate had picked up on the general rhythm of both Richie’s schedule at the donut shop and the usual flow of customers, and now often found herself situated at the booth closest to the counter when there was an ebb of people in the lobby, giving her time for a quiet coffee and catch-up. Richie was glad to see her, glad that she didn’t ask any further than that, when he’d been making up increasingly outlandish stories for concerned regulars all day. The best one had been an elaborate tale about an encounter with a wily kangaroo in the outback, which was where he’d told a little boy he’d been the past couple days. He always seemed to enjoy Richie’s Australian accent in particular and typically came in on Sundays and Wednesdays, clinging to his mom’s dress, usually with something sticky already on his face and hands preceding the chocolate glazed donut he always requested. He had bright eyes and fat little cheeks. Richie had become a recent fan of the awe in his eyes when he switched voices or accents or general demeanor. 

Kate seemed to be more of a fan of Richie’s (albeit currently deflated) default personality, and it was a relief to turn off the plucky customer service voice and take a break for a second, half sprawled over the display case to hear her. “Self righteous anti-smoker manager running you ragged again today?” 

“She’s gonna have me in the fucking ground by next week if she doesn’t let me go outside every once in a while.” He pushed up his glasses to rub his face, adjusting his hat. 

“You just got icing in your hair, genius.” 

“That’s the last concern on my mind, trust me.” There was already strawberry filing clumping up in the back from earlier in the shift when he’d done the same thing, and he simply couldn’t bring himself to care.

“So leaving town for a couple days clearly didn’t leave you as refreshed and ready to keep slaving for money as you’d hoped?” 

“I would have gotten myself a sleeping bag and started from square one in Chicago if I could have, trust me. Would have taken up official residence on a bench in Millennium Park and slept under the Bean when it rained.” Richie hadn’t wanted to leave at all. On the drive back he’d, in fact, heavily considered simply turning the car around and seeing if there weren’t any donut shops or radio stations in need of a new employee close to Bev’s campus. Could have maybe camped out on her floor for a couple weeks until he got a paycheck coming in. 

“Why didn’t you?” 

Richie propped himself up on his hands, having dropped to his elbows to rub at his tired eyes. Kate took him a little by surprise. “What, why didn’t I drop everything and stake out in Chicago?” 

She nodded as if it were a perfectly obvious question, sipping her coffee. Richie had cleaned out the machine before making it for her, something he almost never did, on account of the fact that the coffee machines were typically disgusting forces to be reckoned with. 

He answered before he could stop himself. “It’s too fucking cold.” 

“That’s it?”

Maybe it was. Richie squinted over the display case at her, gears turning. “Maybe that is it, actually.” That, and the fact that he certainly hadn’t had enough underwear with him to last another night. Needed more than a couple pairs of socks and boxers to start the fuck over. 

“Do you even have anything tying you here?” 

“Stop making good points. You can’t walk back into my life and start making _points,_ that’s just not fucking fair.” 

“For the record, you walked back into _my_ life, donut boy. I didn’t fly out to Boston and pick up a job at _your_ favorite cafe.” 

“Another point, I told you to stop it.” 

“You look like you could use a pointer or two.”

“I’m about to pick up the phone and pretend I have someone on the line ordering ten dozen here just to have an excuse not to listen to you and your pointers.” 

“It’s not like you to back away from a stupid impulsive decision, Richie.” She lifted a shoulder. “You’ve been here like, what, three months already? I’m shocked you haven’t skipped town with ten bucks in your pocket on some escapade or another. The only reason you didn’t do that after high school was because going to college far away was good enough to satiate your wanderlust for the time being.”

“You’re still living here, what about that?” 

Kate pressed her lips together. “We’re talking about you right now.” 

“And you sound like you’re impressing your wanderlust onto me. You’re projecting.” 

“So what if I am, I’m paying rent at my own place here, I don’t have the cash on hand to go do something stupid and regrettable. You haven’t done shit in months. And don’t act like you’ve haven’t been dying to get out of here since the day you first moved from— wherever the fuck you came from.” 

“Maine.” 

“Another shit-on-your-heels little town, right?” She shook her cup, pulling the top off to look down into it. “I don’t mean to tell you to get the fuck out of my life after you came back, you’ve been surprisingly good company as of late, but really, dude. I thought we were done here a long time ago.” 

“I feel so loved and important right now, let me tell ya, Kat.”

She flicked her cup toward him as if to splash him with the remainder of her coffee, making him duck, laughing. Empty. Richie brushed off his apron, setting his hands on his hips. “I’m encouraging you, buddy. Pushing you out of the nest.” 

“My parents aren’t doing that enough?” 

“No, your parents are giving you a roof over your head until you figure your shit out. That’s not pushing you out of the nest. I know that from personal experience.” She wrinkled her nose, then threw her empty cup at him with a grin. “Stupid.” 

Richie fumbled it, the damned thing clattering to the sticky tile at his feet. “No need to throw trash at me, now. Or names, for that matter.” 

She stood up, throwing her purse over one arm. “If I leave now, I think you can sneak in a smoke break. And maybe do a little thinking on that. ‘It’s too cold’ is a really interesting way to say ‘I’m scared to take a risk right now.’” 

“You know, I was really proud to be that guy who didn’t have any resentment toward his ex girlfriend, but I think I’m starting to realize you actually kinda suck, dude.” 

“I’m right.” 

“And it sucks.” 

“Richie,” she said, collecting the top of her cup and her napkin to throw those away herself. She looked him over, taking in a slow breath. “You got out of here once, which is more than a lot of kids around here can say. There’s no reason not to do it again.” She mock tipped a hat at him, smiling. “Just promise you’ll stop by one last time if you do.”

When overwhelmed, Richie found that bringing his record player into the kitchen at wee hours of the morning to dig into leftovers or otherwise at the kitchen table (while Eleanor begged silently at his feet and kept him company) tended to relieve a little pressure. It was always a toss up whether or not he’d break into the wine rack or Went’s liquor cabinet, but it had admittedly gotten a little less exciting when he realized he could simply drive out to the 24 hour gas station in town and grab a beer or a couple shooters if he really felt like it.

As of late, Richie was feeling particularly overwhelmed. He set himself up after a long late shift, unable to sleep, plugging in the record player and setting an album on the deck, volume down low as he picked through the cabinets. He wasn’t really in the mood to tear through the spinach dip leftover in the fridge, good as it was. He started grabbing flour and sugar from the pantry, tossing things into measuring cups on autopilot.

He had been talking too much. Everyone had been talking too much, and seemingly still not enough. Richie had been glared at by the kitchen phone every time he passed it, the thought of it boring into him every time his parents were out of earshot in the house. His little notebook, pages still warped and wrinkled from the night outside his broken down car, remained still on his desk, his friends’ names and their various scratched out and rewritten numbers seeming to taunt him in his sleep, dial tones running through his head. 

Could call Mike, ask him to elaborate on the Bill situation, work out a plan for Bill. Could call Bill, confront it directly, ask him to tell him to fess up to whatever was clearly making him bug out, whatever was spewing out onto the page and freaking out Mike. Could call Bev again, thank her most graciously for letting all of them come up and see her, for dealing with the aftermath of his own idiocy, ask her how things were going and if she was alright and if everything had been handled. Could call Ben, ask him to elaborate on what he and Beverly had talked about like he’d clearly wanted to when Richie’s problem had gotten in the way. Could call Stanley, talk it out, admit he’d been a little jealous and a little miffed, tell him he really was happy for him, Patty seemed great, but he didn’t need to keep big exciting shit from him like that. 

Could call Eddie. Self explanatory.

Richie popped his finger out of his mouth, thoughtfully dunking it back into his batter bowl for more. Man, what he wouldn’t give to resolve that even a little bit, even just to ignore it just to have a conversation with him, to gauge at all where the hell Eddie was with it all, even if Richie was unsure where _he_ stood. Hear Eddie’s stupid little voice, imagine him pacing in his apartment’s kitchen like he was auditioning for the prop shark fin ominously circling the swimmers in the next installment of _Jaws_. 

“What the everloving fuck are you doing?” 

Richie flinched, startled out of thought, a blot of batter falling off his offending finger and back into his mostly scraped-clean bowl. “Brownies,” he said immediately, shaking off his finger. He wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. 

Went squinted at him, bleary eyed in boxer shorts and a haphazardly pulled on work shirt, seemingly collected from the floor, glassesless. His usually tidy hair stood up funny on one side. Richie stared back, feeling oddly like he was in trouble, although he couldn’t place why. Went rubbed his forehead. “When the hell did you learn to bake?” 

Richie blinked. “Tonight?”

“Do you mean this morning?” Went went to check his watch, which was not on his wrist, then squinted at the clock on the wall. “It’s— three AM.” 

“Ah, the witching hour,” Richie muttered, looking mournfully into his batter bowl. “Yeah, I watched a girl from my dorm make these earlier in the year and I wanted brownies. We didn’t have box mix.” He hoped it was okay that he used up that much butter. He could run out and get more in the morning if need be. 

“You m—” Went pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re making them from _scratch_?” 

“Uhuh.” 

“Because you watched someone else do it _once_?” 

Richie thought that was evident. They were already in the oven and smelled like a success. “Yeah, I used the last of your walnuts. I’ll get more tomorrow. Sorry,” he added. Walnuts _and_ butter, mental note. 

Went stared at him, now wide eyed, eyebrows lowered quizzically. Richie folded his hands in his lap, glancing to either side before back at his father, who sighed. “You absolutely terrify me sometimes, Rich.” 

“Dad, they're just brownies, I’m pretty sure this transgression is a pretty tame one.” Went had absolutely caught him doing worse in the kitchen at this hour. Richie also thought to bring up the little event in the backyard his first night back, but quickly thought better of it. He couldn’t exactly be grounded at this age, but he still didn’t want to step on that particular toe. 

Went opened his mouth and closed it a few times, at a loss. He circled his hand at the wrist. “So did you just memorize the—” he blew out a breath and waved a hand, dismissing it. “I’m not even going to ask.” 

Richie held his bowl with both hands. As badly as he wanted to finish fiending for batter scraps, he didn’t want to spur a _sugar late at night_ lecture. A double edged sword, considering his well known hyperactivity and his father’s dentistry practice. 

“What the hell are you listening to?” Went crossed to Richie’s record player, listening, then picking up the album cover out on the table. “Alice Cooper’s _Trash_?” 

“It’s— yeah,” Richie admitted, weirdly embarrassed about it. “‘Poison’,” in reference to the current song. He bobbed his leg under the table.

Went hummed. “I was never really a huge fan of his. A little moody, don’t you think?” He gave him a look that suggested to Richie he might ask why he was listening to anything remotely moody, which Richie didn’t really want to answer. 

“I— just— I just grabbed an album, Dad, the main intention here was just the brownies.” 

“Sad brownies?” 

Richie pressed his mouth into a line. Maggie definitely said something to him. Nothing was sacred. “Just brownies.” 

Went shook his head, backing down as he set the cover back on the table. “Please just don’t leave dishes for your mother.” 

“No problem, Pops, I plan on licking this baby clean.” 

“You know what I mean.” Went squinted again, padding over silently to swipe up a glob of batter for himself. He sampled it, nose wrinkling. “A little on the sweet side.” 

“I tried to use a little extra cocoa powder to even it out. Thought there was kind of a lot of sugar to start with.” He blinked into the bowl. “I think it was supposed to be two cups.” 

Went gave him a tired pat on the shoulder, sighing, looking him over for just a moment too long. “Just brush your teeth before you go to bed, whenever the hell that is. I worked hard on those.” He ventured back into the darkness of the hallway, muttering. “Snaggletoothed little monster.” 

Richie sighed, staring down into his now fully empty bowl. He supposed the dad tax still applied when you were a twenty one year old man. great. 

_“I wanna kiss you but I want it too much (too much), I wanna taste you but your lips are venom—”_

Richie reached forward to lift the needle off the record, overthinking it. Maybe a smidge too moody for late night brownies. Late night brownies should be a celebratory thing. Late night scratch brownies were a positive thing. Definitely not sad brownies, he insisted to himself. He moved the needle aside and set it down, crossing his arms on the table to set his chin on his stacked forearms.

The brownies came out fine, but his mouth was somehow too dry to actually taste them. 

Despite all efforts, despite work and becoming increasingly (perhaps annoyingly so) helpful around the house, despite finally learning something that wasn’t the two Oasis songs he could actually get right on the guitar, Richie was still left with too much empty space in his day. 

His thoughts were constantly jammed, mind drifting even when his hands were busy, leaving him feeling ditzy and distracted. He gave back too much change at work, stumbled over his words every time he spoke, cut his finger up on a snapped guitar string and failed to notice for entirely too wrong, caught up. 

Caught up in everything, in what was going on unspoken between his friends, in hating his job, in wanting to go _somewhere_ and do _something_ , in not knowing at all _where_ and _what_ . It felt too open and too restricted at the same time, like he was in a place where he could truly start on any new page he wanted, like he was staring down at a blank novel, but at the same time like almost all the pages had been torn out and his options were still frightfully limited. There were too many excuses, too many things holding him back, things left unsaid he couldn’t bear to bring up but couldn’t bear to let go and forget about. He ached every time he thought about picking up the phone or his keys to talk to or visit anyone, thinking he _should_ , not understanding why he felt he _couldn’t_. 

He’d been running on a fairly fragile sense of stability since coming home, a vague promise of _I’ll get out of here sometime_ the only thing keeping him going steady, but it was starting to fall apart. The seams were ripping, and Richie was desperately trying to tie the thread wherever it broke rather than hauling out a new needle and thread and actually fixing things. 

He’d seemingly always had odd dreams, subconscious mind having wandered far and wide since he was a kid, but he felt plagued by them lately. Something always hovering at the fringe of his mind while he slept, things that felt frivolous like wondering if Ben’s next internship was going to go well and genuinely dire, like the unfinished conversation with Bill in the bathroom. And sometimes something much bigger, darker, more ancient, something Richie couldn’t shake no matter how things were going in his life. Something with teeth and claws and a muzzle dripping hot foaming drool, pacing on the edge of his consciousness, stalking. He woke up more than once in a cold sweat, mind having immediately erased whatever had spooked him, left feeling robbed of something he should at least be able to remember. He couldn’t deal with something he kept getting amnesia about, even if he didn’t want to. He would have at least liked the chance. 

His daydreams, however, always seemed to turn like a compass in one direction. Dairy Queen in the car after the store closed, greasy pizza outside in the cold, Paul Simon, mugs standing in for wine glasses, searching for stars that just weren’t visible, damp washcloths and hotel clock radios. He’d always been a particularly distracted person, but it was taking more and more to keep his attention since— everything. 

Richie had learned, after _years_ of confusion as to why the fuck he couldn’t seem to do one goddamn thing at a time, that he tended to actually get things done when he worked out at least one thing nagging at him. His room had had to be situated a certain way for him to be able to study in high school, this lamp had to be on when he was doing math, had to be laying on his back in his bed to get through a history reading, so on. Had to have breakfast before he could get started on his first task of the day, had to have a record on if he had any hope of folding his laundry. He’d figured out some of the conditions of the part of his brain that held his ability to accomplish anything hostage, but, unfortunately, it wasn’t always consistent. When there was too much going on, it felt as if nothing could be solved without something else being worked out first, and his reasoning started to get circular. He couldn’t look for a new job because he hadn’t talked to Stanley in a while, but he couldn’t call Stanley because he really needed to change his sheets, but he couldn’t change his sheets because he had to look for a new job first. No rhyme or reason to it, really, but it made things impossible nonetheless. 

The strange monotony of living at home in a town where, decisively, nothing ever goddamn happened, had started to wear on him as well. Richie was faced with the fact that he had no excuse not to work _something_ out, which grated on him more than he cared to admit. He still had no plan to go back to school, not knowing any more about what he wanted to come out with a degree in than he had six months ago. School was a great way to feel as if he was doing _something_ , even if that something was fooling around with his credits and not really getting anywhere with them. But school didn’t work, and as much as he’d like to think he could make it work, it hadn’t. He was frustrated with how many plans had gone out the window, tired of coming up with new ones. 

Worry over Bill nagged at him. Avoiding that conversation with Mike nagged at him. Not being in school nagged at him. Stanley having a secret girlfriend nagged at him. Beverly facing down some jackass with a trigger finger when he was too far away to do anything about it nagged at him. His shit job nagged at him. The looks from his dad (which he knew weren’t intentional) every time he saw his grown up son retreating to his childhood bedroom to sleep off a long day at a dead end job nagged at him. The persistent patience he didn’t really deserve from his mom nagged at him. His bank account nagged at him. 

Eddie, though, had not done any goddamn nagging lately, and Richie could have really fucking used it about then. 

It was into April before Richie could finally feel himself breaking down about that. About Eddie. His face had finally fucking healed up, after turning green then yellow around the eyes and finally getting back to normal. He could comfortably sleep face down again if he so pleased. He’d had plenty to think about and feel like shit over seemingly everything, but _that_ was the one taking the cake. The Eddie Situation. The concerns that seeped between the cracks of all the others, the Great Big Stupid Thing keeping him from doing anything else. He was trying his damndest to do his math homework without that one lamp on, and it wasn’t fucking getting done. 

And he had the audacity to wonder why.

Maggie asked him one afternoon, very lightly, in passing, once more, if he’d gotten a chance to talk to any of his friends lately, knowing damn well he hadn’t, both of them knowing she was talking about Eddie in particular, and Richie came very close to snapping at her. And that was a commandment in his personal Bible, not to get short with his mother, not with any intent to actually be mean. He, instead, snapped the pencil that had been in his hands clean in half, doodling idly in his notebook for anything to do on his day off, mouth shut, and finally snatched up his tiny wrinkled notebook from its lonely corner on his desk. 

Eddie’s home number he had memorized, but he needed the book for the number to his school apartment’s phone. 

Maggie had retreated back out to the garden by the time Richie worked up his nerve and snuck into the kitchen in the middle of the afternoon, Went caught up balancing his checkbook in his office, door shut. He knew his mom would give him enough space if she saw him on the phone, but he really had to be cautious in case of any slip of nosiness. He paced for a moment, eyeing down the harvest gold menace hanging on the wall beside a calendar which needed to be flipped. He did that first, pinning it back up on APRIL, the picture featuring, according to the little caption under the month, the green rolling hills of Ireland in summer. 

His little phonebook trembled slightly in his hands. Must be the book itself, excited to be handled after so long left alone to gather dust on Richie’s desk. Surely it wasn’t his own hands getting unsteady at the idea of facing this without a plan. Eddie’s number was on the first page, written down hastily and with no care yet for alphabetizing despite the built in lettered tabs in the rest of the book. His mom had gotten the notebook for him at the dollar store before they’d moved so Richie could copy down his friends’ numbers to keep in touch. His scratchy, childish handwriting established six entries with first names only on the first page, those old Derry numbers and addresses long scratched out and replaced, handwriting getting only a little cleaner as the numbers got more recent, zip codes more spread out. He stared at Eddie’s newest number, running it through his head until it had a cadence. If he dialed it wrong the first time, he wouldn’t have the guts to try again. He had to get it right. He folded the cover back and held it in one hand up next to the keypad, making sure he got each keystroke right. 

_9-1-7..._

Richie had never really been one to chew on his nails, but he gave it a shot as the phone rang, unable to turn back. It was actually kind of hard to wedge a tooth under there, considering he’d just clipped his nails yesterday and there wasn’t a lot to work with, and it wasn’t altogether that satisfying, maybe nail-biting was more of an acquired taste—

The line picked up. 

“Eddie hi Eddie— Richie, I—”

“This is Greg.” 

Richie thunked his forehead against the wall above the phone, taking a breath, initial rush of terror draining out of him, replaced with annoyance. Directed toward whom, he wasn’t sure. “Hi, Greg. It’s Richie.” 

“Do you want me to get Eddie?” 

“That would be fan-spanking-tastic, actually, Greg, yeah.” He heard Greg call Eddie’s name, his heart rate only ticking up when he heard Eddie call something back. Richie raked a hand through his hair as if to fix it, eyes squeezed shut when he heard Greg hand the phone over, a little scuffle as Eddie held it to his ear. 

He prayed he wouldn’t be able to hear his heartbeat on the other line. It was loud enough in Richie’s ears. That wouldn’t pick up, right? 

“Hello?” 

“Hiya,” Richie started, brain scrambling. English was his first language, he had to remind himself. First and only, so far. A little Spanish in high school—

“Richie?” 

“Yes! Hi.” Awesome start. He swallowed, trying to remember some of the lighter conversation he’d been running through in the shower for the past week and a half. Rehearsing without realizing it, not actualizing that this day would actually come. “Hey, Eds, I’ve been going a little crazy at home and figured I should do a quick little pass through the phone book and see if any of you idiots were bored enough to talk to me.” 

There was a slight pause. “Wow, that sounded incredibly sincere and absolutely not like a bold faced lie.” 

Were there any snipers in southwest Missouri? Could he find one on short notice if he went into Springfield? They could set up right in the garden and shoot him through the kitchen window, clean shot, easy money. “Sue me, it’s been a while. I got too used to uh. To seeing you lately.” 

Eddie’s pauses were going to kill him. Why the fuck was he allowed the self control to actually think about what words were going to come out of his mouth before they came out. “Lately? I mean—” 

“Since like— November,” he said, as if Eddie needed reminding. Oh, God, did he? Of course he didn’t, fuck, paranoid idiot. “I just mean I hadn’t gotten a chance to invade the North East since Chicago— that’s the Midwest, I mean since I moved back home— I hadn’t seen you since Chicago.” He’d gotten such amazing grades K-12, his ACT score was nothing to sneeze at, how had he gotten _stupider_ with age?

 _Chicago_ was no longer a city, _Chicago_ was an event, just uttering _Chicago_ once immediately filled Richie with cold regret. He’d brought it up. On the table now. He couldn’t think of a single thing to swipe it back off. There it was. 

Eddie breathed in a way that sounded almost as if he was trying to force a laugh. “Right, yeah. Um—”

“It’s not a big d—”

“I didn’t really—” 

Richie shut his eyes. “Sorry, you go.” 

“No, I— you were saying something.” 

Richie could barely hear a little creak on the other line, as if Eddie was twisting up the phone cord all the way out in New York. “How’s school?” 

“Almost over, actually.” Another weird breathlaughthing. “Kind of a relief.” 

“Yeah? Good. Still hell?” 

“Hell as ever.”

Now it was Richie’s turn to make that horrible awkward noise. Not a breath, not a laugh. Artificial. He cleared his throat. It actually fucking tasted bad. He’d had his share of awkward phone calls, but Jesus, never with one of the guys from home. Never Bev, not even when she’d called the day after he got back from Chicago to update him on the whole Tom situation. It had been a dry and tired conversation, but at least when they’d laughed, subtle as it was, they’d meant it. Richie had never felt less like laughing. 

“How’s uh— how’s your parents?” 

“Oh my God,” Richie said, thanking his lucky stars he had anything remotely interesting to say on that subject. He leaned back as far as the phone cord would allow to make sure his mom hadn’t snuck back inside from the garden, that the office door was still firmly shut. “Guess what little tidbit I found out about our dear Margaret and Wentworth Tozier.” 

“Is said tidbit going to make me weirdly uncomfortable and like I can’t ever look your father in the eyes again?” 

“N— what could I possibly say that—?” Richie’s voice broke, a tiny little laugh cracking out of it. He heard something similar on Eddie’s end and it felt like the first ray of sunshine breaking through a month long overcast. Biblical shit. 

“Don’t make me out to sound like the pervert, I never fucking know what’s going to come out of your mouth.” 

“I caught them smoking weed when I came home, they thought I was supposed to be in— out of town longer.” Richie decided to give chewing on a nail another shot in the space before Eddie’s response. 

He heard him breathe out in a little rush, something that could have been a little disbelieving chuckle, a real one, then a “ _What?_ You’re fucking kidding me.” 

“No, swear to god.” 

“Your _parents_?” 

“Pretty sure it was them, otherwise I’ve been living in the wrong house with the wrong people for the last month.” 

“What the fuck.” Then he laughed, he actually laughed, hoarse like he hadn’t in days, and Richie slumped against the counter, clutching the phone to his ear like a lifeline. He’d convinced himself somewhere between the hotel garage and his driveway that he wouldn’t get to hear that ever again. Even if it was over something stupid that had happened, wasn’t even something funny Richie had said, was something benign and frivolous and out of sheer disbelief. “So your dad and the mother who raised you Catholic were smoking weed?” 

“For the record, she was only trying to give me a sense of morality to jump off from, the Catholicism was well intended and pretty weakly implemented. A rite of passage, maybe, she went through it, I had to as well. A cross to bear, one might say.” 

“I’m trying to picture this, shut up.” 

Richie’s head fell back against the wall with a light thud, stuck firmly in the clouds. Relief ran down him like warm shower water. He could hear the Smith’s record his dad had put on in the office drifting through the house. The windows were open, something sweet was blooming in the backyard. 

“Richie?” 

“Present.” 

“Oh— sorry, I was making sure you were still there.” 

“I was shutting up so you could properly picture my parents getting stoned together on the back patio.” 

“Right.” 

He could hear the grin in Eddie’s voice. Could picture his dimples, the freckles. His knees felt weak. He opened his mouth, a breathy snicker falling out. “They— the cat was with them.” 

“ _Elanor_?” 

He sounded so scandalized, as if the cat participating in such an activity was the most shocking revelation yet. Richie barked. “Yeah, fuck, my dad was feeding her catnip so she didn’t feel left out—” 

Eddie laughed, outright laughed, ringing like a bell, and Richie practically felt the walls of the house melting away. He was in heaven, maybe, things were alright and he’d died and gone to heaven. _He kissed you_ , the thought came. _That boy kissed you, he really did, that definitely wasn’t a dream. Rich, you lucky bastard, sure as you’re born, he kissed you, and you should do everything in your mortal power to get him to do it again, and maybe don’t run off like a spooked rabbit this time._

“Oh, fuck,” Richie said, catching his breath, realizing he’d been laughing too. “Shit, so what's going on in Eddieworld?” 

“Eddieworld?” 

“Yeah, the blissfully ignorant state where parents and cats can do no wrong.”

“Oh, parents can do plenty fucking wrong, I’m just shocked it was _your_ parents, of all people.” 

“C’mon, what’s new with you? What’s poppin’?” 

“I’ll tell you if you never say that again.” 

“What, you don’t like _what’s poppin_ ’?

“No, you sound fucking ridiculous.” 

“I’d pay you to berate me all day long, you don’t know the wonders it does for my ego.” 

Richie heard his little snort. Fuck. He was a goner, he was a tried and true goner. Maybe they should talk about it. Code name _Chicago_ . Maybe if they talked about _Chicago_ it would actually go well. No one was listening. No one was paying attention, they could talk about it. “Nothing’s _poppin’._ ”

“Really?” Richie asked, his grin slathered carelessly on his face like butter on hot toast. “Nothin poppin’ at all? No news? Same ol’ same ol’?” 

“Oh,” Eddie said, “I mean— nothing big.” He sounded bashful about it. Richie was dying to pry. 

“So there is something? What, make Dean’s List finally? Beat out Shirley in the office for Crinkly Old Secretary of the Month Award?”

“I’m not a _secretary—_ ”

“Deepest apologies, Eds. I’m just trying to think of anything exciting that could possibly happen in your regularly scheduled day-to-day that you might find worth telling me.” 

_(“So, for once in my life—”)_

“I uh. I actually, believe it or not.” Eddie paused. He took a breath which Richie felt in his own chest. “Not to be, I mean d— don’t wanna end up like Stan, here, so I might as well tell you now—”

Richie hummed pleasantly, drunk off the sound of his voice, happy to let him ramble on for a moment. It was comforting, somehow, that Eddie got weirdly talkative when his nerves acted up. Richie was sickeningly fond of it, savoring each little unsure syllable, hanging onto a stammer like it was the only thing keeping him afloat in a stormy sea. He sighed. He was going to call him every goddamn day from now on if this was how good it felt to talk to him again. 

“I— have a girlfriend, actually. Recently it’s— pretty recent.” 

Brakes screeched, anti-locks clicking furiously. Richie wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. He flew through the windshield going 90, flung at record speeds into a snarled briar patch at the side of the road, right into a wild rabid badger’s nest. There were maybe ten of them in there altogether (in this scenario badgers lived together in large, ravenous groups) and they tore quite eagerly into Richie’s chest, easily parting his ribs to get at the cowering, trembling hunk of flesh his heart was dissolving into, chunks of windshield (not even the safety glass, that would be too kind), digging into his flesh, his left leg was over there somewhere, off to the left of the wreck, fully detached, the buzzards or coyotes could pick that up later, to be sure. 

“Richie?” 

It was the second time Eddie had said his name after what was turning out to be an extremely uncomfortable pause, but the first time Richie had heard it. He shook his head, a piece of hair sticking to the corner of his mouth that he had to obnoxiously blow out. He turned speech on auto pilot, conscious narrative shrinking back inside a dark corner of his skull to hide. “Holy shit, Kaspbrak, you’ve actually managed to shock me into silence. Would you actually fucking look at that, huh? Finally tricked some poor girl into affection, my god, I couldn’t be prouder.” It was a Voice, but not an outlandish one. Still Richie, but not current Richie, not truly. It was a Richie that wasn’t physically there at the moment, a Richie who could handle this, who thought that was funny and delightful, Eddie’s having a girlfriend. To his knowledge, Eddie’s first girlfriend. _I am happy for him._ “Look at you, kid, finally fucking making it in the Big Apple, it’s about damn time—” 

“Rich, please,” Eddie said, sounding actually as if he might be begging. “Please don’t make a big deal out of it—” his voice died out. 

“Right.” Richie swallowed, trying desperately to not lose the Voice. He had to keep talking or it would break. He had no words to give it to put out, the thoughts in his head all things he couldn’t say, before something rose to the top. Something he’d been thinking since he was a kid, since he was full of pipe dreams he didn’t know were impossible, since he figured he and the Losers would be best buddies for life and things would never change. Something he’d actually been considering with some kind of gravity lately, like maybe it could actually happen, maybe foolishly so. Absolutely foolishly so. It was a shit plan, but it was one thing he couldn’t stop considering as of late, desperate and tired and alone and stranded in the middle of nowhere. “You know, Eddie, I’ve got big news myself, actually,” he said, trying to make it sound as if he hadn’t just made up his mind right there. As if this had been a long time coming, as if the final nail hadn’t just been pounded into the lid of the coffin with the word _girlfriend_. As if he wasn’t going to excuse himself calmly to the bathroom to throw up the moment he hung up. “I’ve got some big news myself.” 

The next morning at breakfast, Went dropped his fork. It clattered around his plate, flinging a drop of syrup up in an arc in the morning sunlight streaming in from the window behind him. His voice was dry despite his half empty cup of orange juice next to him, hoarse with disbelief. “ _California_?” 

Richie looked across the table at him as evenly as he could, hands a little shaky, clasped tightly in his lap. He swallowed, needing a little orange juice himself. Went didn’t often get this exasperated with him, was typically patient, but this was pushing things. “Yup.” 

Maggie, with Eleanor in her lap, oblivious and trying to steal a scrap of french toast, tried to step in as damage control. “Hold on, why don’t we talk about this—” 

Went cut her off with every ounce of proud New England-bred Yankee fury his voice could muster. “You’re moving to _California_?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> songs mentioned:  
> If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out - Cat Stevens  
> Girls on Film - Duran Duran  
> Poison - Alice Cooper  
> Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want - The Smiths  
> thank you so goddamn much to everyone who has left a kudos or a comment i literally think about it all day when i get one and i am!! over the moon about it i cannot believe the number of people who have read this holy Shit thank you
> 
> special thanks to k for all YOUR good ass playlists so i have songs to riff off of while im writing (you'll see this eventually and youre the BEST) 
> 
> AND thank you evan (@iwannadie4000 on tt) for including this on the big reddie fic rec i have gotten so many new readers and im Shocked and So Grateful you rock dude


	17. TROUBLE IN EDDIEWORLD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! 
> 
> This is another chapter that includes a horror scene. Again, nothing graphic or gory, but I wanted to give fair warning!
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading!!

**11 APRIL 1997**

**NEW YORK**

**1:47 PM**

Eddie held it together for precious seconds, long enough to wish Richie the best of luck and calmly hang up the phone, before he screamed. Outright screamed, eyes closed, head down, hand still clamped with white knuckles on the phone where it hung on the receiver on the wall, stirring up residual fury and frustration and fuck knew what else at the pit of his chest. 

Greg, situated nearby on the couch, threw his unopened beer straight into the air, swearing, ruffled like a startled goose, before laughing. “Fuck, bad news?” He scrabbled for the can under the coffee table. 

“I’m going for a walk.”

“Oh, really bad news, yikes.” He pulled his feet up onto the cushions as Eddie blew by. “You want a beer for the road?” 

The door slammed shut behind him. 

“Can’t get much fucking further away than Los  _ fucking _ Angeles, can you?” He probably needed a jacket, it hadn’t quite properly warmed up after what had proved to be a brutal winter, but Eddie could feel his temperature steadily rising as his sneakers chewed up the pavement of the parking lot. “Unless you wanted to go to fucking  _ China _ , but that circles back around again and might even be fucking closer  _ shit— _ ” __

He very nearly tripped over a curb, not paying an iota of attention to where he was going. Eddie caught himself, burning, breath coming quick. He was furious, firstly, that was the only thing he could think to call it, boiling mad, wanting to scream again. He didn’t know why it fucking mattered, it wasn’t like Richie was moving from next door to Timbuktu, he was already so far away to begin with, it shouldn’t fucking matter. 

“What the fuck is he gonna do in  _ Los Angeles _ ?” Eddie was striding again, heading vaguely for the library. “Join a fucking— shitty garage band and get drunk on stage every night and be some fucking— some  _ rockstar? _ What the  _ fuck _ .” If his pace was any quicker he would have been jogging. He would have started running had he not been in a sweater and jeans. He needed to keep moving or he was going to kick a car tire or a trash can and make an ass of himself. He shook his head, jaywalking stiffly across the street. “Los fucking Angeles.” 

His hands were balled by his sides, he had to flex them to release some of their tension. Maybe he should call Stanley or Bill, ask them if they knew about any of this bullshit, ask one of them to talk some sense into Richie. Maybe he’d actually listen to either of them. “He’s gonna get fucking  _ eaten _ in that town, what the fuck.” He pushed up his sleeves, overheated from moving, but unable to stop. 

Normally, Eddie would have kept his neurotic energy to himself or his room, but he couldn’t bring himself to care that it was on full display as he powered his way aimlessly across campus. Embarrassment was far from his mind, despite the looks he received as he ranted aloud across the quad, pitched forward at an angle as he carried on. 

He had too much energy to burn off, a fire in his chest stoked by altogether too many thoughts, too many strings left hanging unresolved. He felt like he’d been fraying for a long time and doing little to stop it, but this felt like Richie tugging one wayward thread and unravelling a few ends he’d been trying desperately to ignore. It wasn’t something he could do anything about either, he couldn’t tell Richie that he should stay in his little nowhere town for Eddie’s sake. He wasn’t supposed to stay put for Eddie’s convenience, and Eddie knew that, but the fact of the distance stung.

It hurt, he realized, almost suddenly, under the simmering bitterness, it actually did hurt. He paused at one point, caught by the dumpsters behind the university center, then powered on, frantically trying to brush it off. It couldn’t be personal, Richie wasn’t stupid enough to upend his entire life and move across the country because Eddie had jumped him and made things awkward, but the fact of him going all the way to the exact opposite coast was just. Striking a nerve. Eddie shrugged off any number of thoughts of calling him to talk him out of it. Calling to tell him New York had just as many opportunities as did LA, tell him he hadn’t figured out housing for senior year, maybe they could get a place somewhere between the city and Eddie’s campus. He knew it was selfish, wanting him close by for his own sake, but there was genuine worry for Richie as well. A tirelessly social creature in a place where he didn’t know a single soul. Eddie ached to think of him having trouble fitting in, hating to think of him, god forbid, lonely out there. Even if Richie would probably do fine. Richie could charm the pants off anyone with any good sense of character, he’d be perfectly alright, but Eddie fretted nonetheless. The uncertainty of it plagued him.

He suddenly thought of Richie in the McDonald's back in November, leaning over his tray, blue eyes bright as he pitched running away to Eddie, maybe more serious about it than he’d cared to admit in the moment. The image was crystal clear in Eddie’s mind, Richie’s tattered jacket and waxing hopeful smile, voice lowered as if sharing a secret. 

_ “How ‘bout this. You and I get an apartment near Bill’s, do some shitty jobs for very little money for a while, get so bored and fed up with life that we go on some ridiculous bender and fuck up our brains so bad we actually get in touch with what we want to do, then give that a shot, how does that sound?”  _

After everything Eddie’d put the two of them through over the past couple months, he realized he would have given everything for the chance to say yes to that proposition. 

Eddie suddenly couldn’t walk another step. His energy had burned off, leaving him feeling husk-like, legs burning from hauling himself, directionless, from his apartment. He was at the edge of a parking lot, one of the buildings on the far side of campus, and he took a seat on the curb, tucking his knees to his chest. 

He had the sudden vivid feeling he’d been there before, the sudden onset of misery something strangely familiar. Eddie closed his eyes, trying to calm himself with a slow breath, suddenly in a parking lot 500 miles away. 

_ Eddie had been brimming with fragile confidence in his pink button down, black slacks and tie up until the moment he crossed under the balloon arch around the doors of the gymnasium, his small gaggle of almost-friends dashing past him toward the punch bowl and clutch of tables on the far side of the room, lead by Greta. No one had had a date but Susan, who’d arrived separately with her boyfriend and some of his friends.  _

_ Eddie stood there under the arch at the entrance of his junior prom, buffering, filled with a weighty sort of dread the likes of which felt, at the moment, completely new. He’d spent years chock full of anxiety entering many a room, wishing he could shrink so small that the atoms of the floor would simply swallow him up, but this was somehow heavier. It felt just crushing enough to stop him short, breath harsh in his throat. It was worse than returning to eighth grade after a hot, lonely, and drawn out summer having shot up four inches seemingly overnight and having simply too much body to hide properly anymore. It was as if there was plastic wrap strung up between the gym doors, stopping him just short of crossing the threshold, something invisible insisting he simply was not welcome there.  _

_ He was shocked back into the present when someone, a girl with a knee length dress, heels in hand, dashed past him. A lock of red hair swung back almost in slow motion over her shoulder. An image of Beverly came flooding back to Eddie, coupled with a sudden and suffocating sense of loneliness that threatened to bring him to his suddenly weak knees.  _

_ He caught sight of Greta, giving him an odd look from the table her group had claimed, but it was all Eddie could do to stand there, the red-orange lighting and glitter of the disco ball strung high in the ancient rafters of the Derry Senior High School gymnasium passing listlessly over his face, until he decided to go.  _

_ He turned to leave.  _

_ It was no chilly night by any measure, summer was very close on its way. There was warmth without humidity yet, but Eddie found he was sweating. His dress shirt stuck to his back, starched and bunched and uncomfortable in his armpits. His mother had bought him nice shoes for the occasion. They were too small. They were in the back of Greta’s car where he’d switched them out for white sneakers he’d stashed there the previous day. He’d only wanted to endure the black Oxfords for pictures taken by Heather’s mom, embarrassed for some reason that they didn’t fit. That they were uncomfortable and stiff and awkward, maybe reflecting too closely to how Eddie was feeling.  _

_ He walked as if in a dream back down the steps, hearing the heavy crypt-like doors clang shut behind him. He could see one lone star high above his head as he drifted, sky still bleeding rich pink and orange, finding himself out behind the building, suddenly seated firmly on the curb, shoes looking stark against the dark asphalt. The dusty, once clean rubber toes of his shoes seemed to sneer up at him, his hands looking simply too big and gangly at the ends of his still scrawny wrists which rested limply on his knees. The hem of his slacks rode up above the top of his pink socks. His dad’s watch, which he’d started wearing that year, was still too big on his wrist, but neither he nor his mother had ever thought to get it adjusted. He felt distinctly like crying, yet distinctly like nothing would come if he so much as tried. Dry heaves.  _

_ Blood pounded in his ears, which felt hot. He touched one almost curiously, dreamlike. Hot, maybe embarrassed, upset. He could see Greta’s teal car parked in a spot not far from him, but for some reason couldn’t fathom how the hell he’d gotten there at all.  _

_ His brain took precious seconds to register the click of bike wheels and the cheap clink of a kickstand hitting blacktop.  _

_ Eddie tipped his head to the side and saw a figure approaching, hands in pockets. Familiarity struck him like a pin in the ass, and he blinked, clearing his eyes, to find Mike Hanlon gently stalking toward him.  _

_ “I thought you’d be inside,” he said, his deep voice draping Eddie in a strange soothing sort of calm like a shock blanket.  _

_ He couldn’t speak in response. Mike looked heart wrenchingly handsome, dressed plainly in an offwhite button down and blue slacks, his letterman unbuttoned over top. He gave Eddie a shy sort of grin, a strange awkwardness, before settling down easily next to him. Eddie swallowed, throat suddenly desert dry.  _

_ “What am I doing out here?” he asked for Eddie.  _

_ Eddie nodded. _

_ The two of them hadn’t even discussed attending prom, let alone going in the same group. Mike had the football players, Eddie had the girls who put up with him at best. That discrepancy was well established. But here Mike was regardless, sitting alone outside with Eddie Kaspbrak of all people. Mike slung an arm around him, big hand clapping against Eddie’s bicep. “I had a feeling.” He turned his face to the sunset for a moment, a second star having appeared, then looked kindly at Eddie. “Call it intuition.”  _

_ Like a dam breaking, Eddie burst into tears. Somehow expecting it, Mike huddled him against his side, resting his cheek on Eddie’s hair. It was stiff with gel, uncomfortable as it pressed against his scalp, but Eddie couldn’t bring himself to care. Mike was quiet, seemingly afraid to open his mouth lest he suffer the same fate as Eddie.  _

_ After a somber moment, filled with the chatter of Spring bugs and the far away mournful crooning of a U2 song drifting from the gym, Eddie managed, “I miss them.” He wiped snot on the cuff of his shirt, stared at it, then dropped his hand limply in his lap. His stupid legs stretched out in front of him as he took a shaky breath. “I don’t know why, I think I miss them more than I’ve ever missed anyone.”  _

_ Richie Tozier sat on his parent’s rooftop at that moment, chain smoking through shaking fingers, trying to burn off waves of  _ feeling _ that had crashed over him at dinner, coming straight out of nowhere. He’d excused himself suddenly, his father had watched him race down the hall, worried from the pallor in his face that his son was about to be sick. _

_ Beverly Marsh startled herself when a lock of her hair swung freely into her view, despite the stillness in the air inside the movie theater. A few friends sat around her, friends she loved yet felt detached from sometimes, notthere. She felt detached from almost everything at that moment, somehow unable to recall the title of the movie she’d just paid four bucks to see.  _

_ Stanley Uris jerked his head up from where it had dropped onto a textbook, noticing a spot of drool and feeling distinctly upset and unnerved over it. Something in him told him it wasn’t about falling asleep studying. Again. Something made him smell mud and bamboo.  _

_ Ben Hanscom stopped talking mid sentence to his mother, who immediately asked what was wrong. Ben couldn’t answer. He wasn’t sure. He stared blankly at her over their salad bowls on their small kitchen table, wordless.  _

_ Bill Denbrough, laying on a friend’s basement couch under a cloud of dank smoke, shivered. His body seemed to fall through the couch for a moment, vertigo numbing his senses. He dropped a foot to the dirty carpet to steady himself and asked aloud what the hell was in that pipe of Chris’s. Another pal brought him a glass of water and offered to heat him up a Hot Pocket. He didn’t look so good.  _

_ Mike Hanlon closed his eyes firmly for a moment then opened them, sniffing, not looking at anything in particular. “I know what you mean.”  _

_ Eddie could only nod, feeling a stiff lock of hair falling forward over his brow. He smelled like cologne he didn’t like. He’d taken it from a sample in one of his mother’s magazines. She’d pitch a fit if she knew he wore cologne. She would surely have had something to say if she knew he had gone with a bunch of girls instead of the group of well-to-do boys he’d been lying about being friends with for over a year now.  _

_ Sitting in silence allowed them both to recover for a moment, and when Eddie finally sat up and looked at Mike, he felt 13 for a moment. He gave him a watery smile, sniffing again. “We must look like complete idiots.” His voice was scratchy.  _

_ “What’s new?” Mike asked.  _

_ Eddie snorted, surprising himself. He jumped and Mike laughed. “I guess you’re right,” Eddie admitted, scuffing his shoe on the asphalt.  _

_ “What landed you on the curb?” Mike kicked a loose rock, watching it clatter off into the dying light.  _

_ Eddie tipped his head back, searching for a constellation. Still just too bright out to see properly. “Fuck, I don’t even know. I couldn’t go inside. I just couldn’t make myself.”  _

_ Music drifted dimly from around the corner of the building. (“We’re one but not the same, we get to—”) Eddie sighed. The air felt cold in his nose despite the warmth of the night. Mike started to get up, and Eddie stiffened. Mike extended a hand. “Wanna give it a second shot?” _

_ “I’ve never wanted anything less,” Eddie groaned. He ran his hands down his face, wiping away drying tears.  _

_ Mike laughed again, bending to take his hand and pull him to his feet. He went easily. Eddie might have been growing steadily for the past few years, but it was all  _ up _ with no  _ out _. Mike, on the other hand, was the one bringing college scouts to Derry’s usually loosely packed football games. “You wanna dance?” he asked, hand still clasped around Eddie’s. _

_ “ _ Absolutely _ not,” Eddie said, surprising himself again with a laugh.  _

_ Mike raised his eyebrows. “Bold of you to turn down a supposed future Black Bear. Not one girl in that gymnasium could do the same, I bet.” He said it nearly begrudgingly. Eddie could tell Mike’s unfailing humility made even that little joke a big effort.  _

_ Eddie searched his face for pity and found none. He carded his fingers through his sticky hair with a sigh, voice heavy on his tongue. “Thank you for showing up, Mike.”  _

_ Mike stuck his hands in his pockets, shrugged. “Don't thank me, man. You would’ve done the same for me.”  _

_ Eddie still couldn't believe he was there, standing alone with him in the parking lot instead of inside with the rest of their class. But he was right. “I would have.” He could picture himself scrambling out of his window like an idiot, a map in his mind bringing him to Mike like it had several times over the last couple years. They never quite happened upon each other, there was always intent to find each other. It had been the same before Stan moved away, and Ben before him, and the rest. Once Richie, starting the chain, had left, those he left behind had clung desperately together until they were picked off one by one. _

_ That left two.  _

_ Eddie felt sad again, looked at his stupid shoes.  _

_ Mike squeezed the ball of his shoulder comfortingly.  _

_ Eddie spoke to the ground. “You’re planning on graduating from here still, right? Next year?” _

_ Mike paused, which made Eddie look up.  _

_ “Of course,” he said. He looked at Eddie, and Eddie could sense a sort of worry in the depth of his brown eyes. “You are too, right?”  _

_ “Much as I’d like to finally get the hell out of here, yeah. I’m sticking it out. For the foreseeable future.” His lip twitched as an image of his mother passed through his brain. She’d mentioned New York a few times, but Eddie only had one year left. She couldn’t pull him when he was so close to finishing, but he never truly knew. He felt a headache coming on. It felt strange. “I’ve hardly even thought about college.”  _

_ “I’m trying not to stress over it too much.” The look in Mike’s face was telling. He’d been stressing about it plenty.  _

_ They stared at each other for a moment, both sizing each other up. Eddie looked very close to almost a young adult, Mike looked every bit the 17 year old farm raised linebacker heartthrob he was. They’d come a very long and hard way from the scrawny little kids they’d been. Even if they still felt like helpless scrawny little kids most of the time.  _

_ Mike sighed through his nose. “So we’re cool for now.”  _

_ “We’re cool for now.”  _

_ Together for now. The last bits of tape steadily wasting away on the bonds of their boyhood club.  _

_ Mike squeezed his shoulder one last time.  _

_ Eddie pressed his lips together, looking up at him gratefully.  _

_ Richie shakily clambered back into his window and tucked his cigarettes away in his nightstand drawer.  _

_ Beverly surprised herself by laughing when one of her friends poked fun at the bad acting in the movie.  _

_ Stanley shook his curly head and wiped the drool from the page, wincing, before searching for where he’d left off reading.  _

_ Ben snapped himself out of it, finished his conversation and dinner with his mother, and headed to the bathroom to shower before bed.  _

_ Bill took a sip of water and a bite of Hot Pocket.  _

_ Eddie rode on the back of Mike’s bike to their favored burger joint for milkshakes, not speaking for a long while. Eddie didn’t bother to tell his friends inside where he’d gone. They, in fact, hardly noticed until they rediscovered his dress shoes in Greta’s back seat as they’d clambered in to head to an after party at Joey Piscapelli’s place, even then taking a moment to remember who they belonged to. _

“Fuck,” Eddie sighed, scrubbing at his tired eyes. No tears this time, but fuck if he didn’t feel just as horridly, sickeningly alone in the moment. “And he’s in fucking  _ Florida _ ,” he said aloud, glancing down the sidewalk is if he wished hard enough Mike might appear on his bike, letterman slung over one shoulder. 

He didn’t. As he was, of course, kicking it in Florida. 

“And I’m here,” Eddie said, bobbing his foot. His voice sounded hollow, words broken up by the breeze the moment they left his mouth, unheard by anyone but himself. 

_ What landed you on the curb? _

A crow cawed on the power lines above him, wind suddenly chilling him despite the afternoon sun. He’d worked up a sweat in his little rant and ramble session, cold now that he was still. His hands worried over each other, knuckles standing out white like pearls. His lip trembled, eyes squeezing shut. “Yup.” 

At that point, he felt the waterworks coming, and decided it was time to drag his sorry ass home before he could make a proper fool of himself, feeling all sorts of wrong. 

“You’re pacing.” 

Eddie stopped in his tracks, wide eyed as he turned to Myra, perched daintily on her bed. “Oh.” So he was. He raked his fingers through his hair, too antsy to sit down just yet. Myra had a hand resting on the comforter next to her, inviting him to without words. He just wasn’t ready. “I’m sorry, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day.” 

“Yeah, I can tell,” she said, more sympathetic than anything. “Richie’s the one who lives in Chicago?” 

“No, Missouri. Some little town, I can’t remember the name.” 

“That’s already far away, Eddie,” she said kindly, trying to talk him down. “California’s just a little further.” 

He spread his hands wide, palms up. “I can’t just  _ drive _ out to California, though, it’s— that’s the opposite coast, Myra, it’s—” 

“Well, you can’t really drive out to  _ Missouri _ either.” 

He sniffed, resolute. “I could.” 

“Were you planning to?” 

He stared at her, dropping his arms and picking at his nails. “I— maybe. This summer. I could have. I  _ could have _ is the point, and I have to get on a  _ plane _ to go to California and I cannot afford another ticket anytime soon. If I needed to I could have driven out to the boondocks for him if he needed— I just could have. And now I can’t. That’s what’s freaking me out. Sorry,” he added, genuinely sorry he was taking up her evening talking about Richie. He shook his hands, trying to release some of their tension. “Sorry, I—” 

“C’mere, Eddie.” 

He sighed, finding Myra looking at him imploringly. There was maybe a hint of pity in that look. God, he’d pity a poor bastard he found pacing like a starving caged circus lion over something that really wasn’t his business. Forcing himself to back down, he stalked over to her bed and flopped down on his back, arms spread wide, one falling just behind where she sat. She turned toward him, looking down at him with a gentle smile. 

“How was your day?” he said up at her, voice dropping a few notes. 

“Less eventful than yours, it seems.” 

Eddie was lucky it was a Saturday when he got the call. He wouldn’t have made it through class or work with all that on his mind. Myra brushed a strand of his hair out of his face and he felt his shoulders starting to relax, eyes falling closed for a moment. “Tell me about it.” 

Myra, when Eddie insisted, went over the fact that she’d done laundry, rewritten some of her notes, and had lunch with Ronnie. “She and Matt are going to the movies on Tuesday night.” 

“Are they?” 

“Do you wanna go with them?” 

Eddie took another deep breath, the spinning in his head finally starting to subside. He sat halfway up, propping himself on his elbows. “I dunno, I should probably focus on homework.” They had less than a month left of the school year to get through. There would be time over the summer for double dates. That, and Eddie wasn’t the biggest fan of sitting in a dark theater while Matt tried to get fresh with Ronnie next to him. It had happened once before, while he was trying to focus on getting his hand, wrapped in Myra’s, to stop fucking sweating. 

Myra didn’t say anything to that, allowing him to get lost in still frantic thought for a moment, making unintentional eye contact with the kitten on Myra’s calendar above her desk. “Maybe I should go call Stan—” 

“You’re obsessing over this, Eddie, relax.” 

He propped up on his hands, brows furrowed, and received a kiss to the forehead. It got a shaky smile out of him. “I’m sorry, I’ll get over it.”

“You don’t have to get over it, just give it a rest.” Eddie sat up and Myra tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “For tonight, at least. And maybe Tuesday, I think you should give yourself a break and we should go with them.” Her voice softened, glance angled up at him through her eyelashes, thick with mascara.

Eddie’s heart rate accelerated, a lead foot dropping on the pedal. 

He wasn’t getting  _ used _ to it, but he was trying desperately to navigate it. It had been a month, and he was learning, but Eddie still felt like he was shit at this. 

Myra would look at him sometimes in such a way, eyes soft, lashes lowered, and Eddie would think, plain stupid, 

_ She wants to kiss you, numbnuts. _

And it always made him sweat. 

It wasn’t like they hadn’t kissed. Or didn’t kiss. They did. They were dating. But Eddie was just on the slow upswing of a learning curve. And he really fucking hoped Myra understood that. She wasn’t his first kiss (he’d have liked to add on a _ by far _ to that, but it just wasn’t true). There had been a couple (two) girls in high school, one was admittedly some stupid dare situation, the other had come out of nowhere and had also gone nowhere. Then, well. 

Chicago. 

But some things didn’t count. Eddie also didn’t count the one time he’d found himself making out with a girl in the hallway of a house party, just barely drunk enough to go through with it. He’d surprised himself, thinking he wasn’t really that type (and he wasn’t, not really, he definitely hadn’t instigated, but he hadn’t said no either). So he guessed the dare kiss in high school and the house party makeout last year (and Chicago) could also maybe not count. That brought his kiss count pretty damn low, but he was an adult. He could handle kissing. 

Myra was still Looking at him while he thought through that, blank faced and frozen for a moment. When they did kiss, it was typically chaste, typically a sweet peck here and there, they didn’t usually do it behind closed doors like this. Sometimes in Eddie’s car after a date for a moment longer, but that was all fine, they’d only been dating for a month. 

_ Are you just gonna stare at her like she’s a zoo animal, dipshit? _

Eddie reminded himself that kissing was easy, and kissed her. Myra had said once recently that one of the reasons she liked him was because he was sweet. He wasn’t the ravenous horndog type of college boy, he took things slow, he was gentlemanlike. Something about that felt kind of weird, didn’t sit with him quite right, but it was also a nice compliment, and Eddie figured there were worse things to take pride in than being gentlemanlike. He was trying not to let his mind wander, trying to just shut up his thoughts and kiss her, but he’d been antsy all day. It wasn’t her fault. 

It wasn’t long, it ended naturally, and it was easy. Sweet and easy. Eddie did like that Myra typically tasted like chapstick or mint, it was undeniably pleasant. She gave him a final little peck before leaning back and settling up against his side, head on his shoulder. He relaxed, putting an arm around her. 

“Better?” 

“Honestly, yeah.” 

She laughed, and Eddie couldn’t help but smile. Myra placed a hand tenderly on his knee, thumb swiping over it fondly. “You’re moving back home for the summer, right?” 

“Yeah,” he breathed. He watched the light from her desk lamp catch in a flossy strand of her hair out of the corner of his eye, unable to see her face from this angle. Something clicked in his brain, back straightening incrementally. “Oh, shit, you are too, aren’t you?” 

Myra didn’t say anything for a minute. Eddie felt her sigh, and he squeezed her shoulders.

“How far is Rochester?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Five hours by car.” 

Eddie felt his stomach sink slightly. Why the fuck hadn’t he considered that yet? He went and got himself a girlfriend in the last term of the year and didn’t stop to consider that she lived further away than Stanley did. 

_ Call Stan later— _

Stop. Focus. He swallowed. “That’s not so bad.” 

“Especially not for the guy who said he was willing to drive out to Missouri at the drop of a hat.” Myra tipped her head up to peck his cheek before she stood up. “And you drive fast.” She picked up something from her desk, but Eddie couldn’t tell what. He was staring at his shoes by then. “I’m also moving back into a place near here in July, so it won’t be all that bad.” 

“No, we’ll make it work,” he said, taking a quick breath and looking back up at her. His stomach felt oddly heavy, as if with guilt. “No big deal.” Myra was holding her planner, he noticed, distantly. She played with the spiral binding for a moment, looking it over, almost seeming to be gearing up to say something. 

“How would you feel about staying over here one night before we have to move out?” She took a moment to look back at him, settling into her desk chair.

Eddie blinked at her again. “Are you worried you won’t see me much over the summer?” He smiled despite himself, sitting back further on the bed, almost a little glad to be missed. It was nice knowing he’d have someone to road trip to this summer, someone who would be excited to see him. 

She shrugged, casual, unable to keep from looking bashful about it. “That’s part of it.” 

He thought it over for a moment. He had the time, most likely, especially considering the two of them got good work in when they studied together. Myra also didn’t have roommates, only a shared bathroom with the girl in the room next to her, so there’d have to be no awkward conversation about having a guy stay the night. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Yeah, I could stay over.” 

She perked up considerably, placing her planner down on her desk among her notes. “Okay,” she breathed, looking almost relieved. 

“Yeah, that’d be fun.” He could do that. Share a bed with his girlfriend. They’d gotten increasingly comfortable with each other over the last month, that could be a natural next step. Eddie felt himself block a thought, stomach swooping, but didn’t stop to consider it, swinging his feet lightly. He’d worried enough for one night. 

“Maybe Tuesday night? After the movie?” 

God, so they were really going to that movie, huh? “Uh—” 

“Or is that too soon?” 

“I don’t think it’s too soon, I just— I mean, if we’re already going to be out late,” he started, thinking aloud. Tuesdays were dollar nights at the local theater, he knew that’s why they’d picked that day, but fuck. He had an early class on Wednesdays. “I—”

“We don’t have to.” 

“I just have class really early,” he said. That was the truth, and he’d hate to wake her up early. “Maybe?” 

“It’s okay,” she said quickly, face a little pink. Maybe it was a little hot in there. “We don’t have to.” 

“No, I mean I still want to, I just don’t wanna keep you up late and then ditch at the ass crack of dawn.” He usually took a while to settle in, and he had a feeling Myra was going to have trouble getting to sleep with him tossing and turning to get comfortable next to her. God, maybe he should warn her. 

Myra was only pinker still, knees neatly together. “Okay, so—” she cleared her throat. “When’s a good time for you?” 

“Friday night?” He didn’t work on Saturdays. They had a few Friday nights left before move out day. “Any Friday night, really,” he added, not wanting to rush her. There was clearly some kind of sense of maybe too soon, and while it didn’t feel like a huge deal to Eddie, if she was nervous about it he didn’t wanna push. Even if she’d suggested it.

They chose the following Friday for the night of the sleepover, and, apparently, settled on Tuesday for the movie. Eddie left Myra’s dorm that night after one more kiss, feeling strangely as if he was missing something obvious, but trying not to pressure himself to fret over it so much when he’d spent the entirety of the day worrying himself into knots. 

On Tuesday, under the cover of darkness in the theater, Eddie, not particularly wanting to but feeling he needed guidance he couldn’t ask for, watched Matt out of the corner of his eye. He felt a little queasy doing it, watched where he placed his hands on his girlfriend, but Eddie didn’t know how to explain the fact that he felt as if Myra wanted this mysterious  _ more _ from him and he wasn’t sure how to deliver. The question itself was too embarrassing. How was he supposed to ask about that?  _ Who _ was he supposed to ask? So he settled, for the time being, for watered down mimicry. Matt and Ronnie held hands on their way into the theater. Eddie held Myra’s hand (but he’d already had that mastered). During the previews, Matt and Ronnie set their joined hands on Matt’s knee. Eddie did the same. Matt ran his thumb over Ronnie’s knuckles. Eddie did the same. At some point, Ronnie moved her hand up Matt’s arm and rested her head on his shoulder, and Matt turned his now free palm down and placed it on her knee, fingers just dipping toward the inside of her leg. Eddie, when Myra eventually instinctively did the same, tried this. He had no idea what the movie was about, not even remotely, as his attention was divided between Matt and Myra. Watch Matt, check in on Myra. Rinse, repeat. 

He thought he was keeping up pretty well until he noticed Matt slide his hand directly up the inside of Ronnie’s thigh and squeeze at the very last inches of her leg, at which point he looked away hurriedly and nearly knocked his popcorn bucket to the floor. His hand remained resolutely on the top of Myra’s thigh, having strayed only a few inches above the knee, for the duration of the movie, whose plot he’d lost track of completely. He prayed she wouldn’t notice how clammy his palm was through her jeans. 

On the decided-upon Friday, he and Myra watched another movie in the common space of her floor, sharing a few boxes of candy Eddie had picked up at the drugstore after class and chatting freely. Eddie was a fan of home viewings rather than theaters in part for this reason. 

And because he could choose to keep the lights on. 

Myra had seemingly lost her anxiety surrounding the sleepover night, which Eddie was relieved to see. He’d realized that her being antsy made him antsy, and it was much easier to hang out with her when she was comfortably slung across the couch, legs in his lap, laughing at him when he wasn’t even trying to be funny. That part felt particularly nice. 

It was sweet, homey, even, getting ready for bed with her, changing into sweats and brushing their teeth. It could have waxed a hair too domestic if not for the stark reminders around the bathroom and bedroom that this was a sterile college dormitory, the few cardboard boxes stacked around the room in preparation for the eventual move-out a reminder of the temporary nature of the space. The pressure felt lower in the stark fluorescents of the bathroom.

Eddie felt, again, that he was keeping up quite well, until Myra, before washing her face, asked him if he could retrieve a headband for her from the top drawer of her dresser in her room. He went to do so, opening the top drawer as told, and was faced down suddenly by a modest unopened box of condoms, staring up at him from on top of the other items strewn about the drawer. 

Eddie promptly shut the drawer with a dull thud. 

He found himself staring at the place they had just been, now replaced by his tense hand on the knob, rather blankly. The hamster turning the wheel in his brain seemed to have had a heart attack, or at least a severe palpitation, as things stopped abruptly. Thought kicked harshly back into gear when he heard Myra, who must have heard him jerk the drawer shut, remind him that it was the top drawer, and he confirmed and yanked the drawer open again, braving moving the box aside to grab the pink headband beside it then quickly tucking the awful thing away again. 

The rest of the night progressed, dreamlike, and Eddie found himself on the other side of it somewhat suddenly. They washed their faces. They clambered into bed. Eddie shut his eyes tightly, wrapped his arms around Myra’s middle from behind as loosely as he could, and made sure to keep his hips back and away without putting his spine under too much stress. He figured he’d not get a wink of sleep, but woke up what felt like minutes later, exhausted. He went home, leaving her with a kiss at the door, as per usual. 

After that, Eddie had had finals and packing to focus on, which was a lovely distraction from the little blue cardboard box of rubbers that had begun to plague his mind. 

His first thought was that, surely, those couldn’t be for him. 

But, his rationality had argued, they certainly couldn’t have been for  _ her. _

And if they were for anyone else, that was most certainly a problem, seeing as they were in the drawer of his girlfriend’s dresser, and it was a fairly easy two-plus-two sort of equation to figure out what that implied. 

Eddie found himself realizing, on the most shallow levels possible for the sake of his sanity, that perhaps they had, in fact, been for him, and, in addition to that, Myra’s initial bashfulness on the subject of his staying the night had had something to do with their arrival in her drawer, but every time he got this far in the thinking process it felt as if the poor brain hamster dropped stark dead and he had to wait several minutes for a replacement to get things started again. This usually meant a change in subject, and, tragically, sometimes an arrival on another default worry of Eddie’s: A certain goofy-smiled, bespectacled bastard inevitably packing up his jalopy to head for the West coast, which was another surefire hamster-killer.

It wasn’t long before Eddie was forcing the trunk of his own overpacked Civic shut, jumping a few times to put all his weight onto it before Jeff appeared seemingly out of nowhere and delivered the final blow easily. The trunk clicked shut, and Eddie looked up at him, some generic word of thanks poised on his tongue before his voice was muffled in Jeff’s shirt when he yanked him into a suffocating hug. 

“We’re gonna miss you, little buddy.” 

“Okay—” 

“You sure you don’t wanna move into the house next semester? We still have that last room open.” 

Greg and Jeff had, somewhat to Eddie’s surprise, offered him a room in what could only be described as a frat-less frat house: a four bedroom in a close by neighborhood long commandeered and passed down by boys from his school. He’d declined politely, despite having absolutely no plan for his living situation come fall, as long as it didn’t involve commuting from his mother’s, where he’d already be stuck for the duration of the summer. 

Eddie wheezed, trapped in the embrace. “No, Jeff, but thanks again—” He was released, placing a hand to his chest and breathing. Greg swung by moments later to give him a less crushing (but no less enthusiastic) hug. Eddie hadn’t pictured this particular goodbye to hold any sort of emotional weight, but he admittedly felt a little twinge as the two of them piled into Greg’s Jeep and finally peeled off, honking obnoxiously one last time and leaving him with the empty apartment to do one last walk through.

He’d meant to simply pass through and make sure he hadn’t left anything important (he’d donated some cleaning supplies and laundry detergent for the next occupants, leaving those neatly under the sink), but found himself pausing in his barren room, chest tight and achy. 

His photos hadn’t been up nearly long enough to leave sun marks on the wall, but Eddie could picture the ghost of them above his now emptied and dusted desk. His stomach felt a little sour when he glanced at his stripped mattress, the blinds on the window above his bed, the space below it. Places that had all, at some point, and still somewhat unbelievably, held Richie Tozier. (The drawstring on the blinds had caught his arm at one point while they were watching  _ Alien _ , effectively winning hushed drunken giggles from Eddie and stringing Richie up momentarily like a puppet.)

Trying not to dwell, Eddie left his room behind with a heavy heart, only to see Richie again curled up on the couch and perched on the kitchen counter, cereal bowl or mug or McDonald’s wrapper in hand, easy grin on face. As if drawn by magnets, his eyes drifted to the green phone mounted on the pale yellow kitchen wall, tempting him with one last private conversation, one last chance to say anything resembling his piece before he was stuck trying to navigate his mother’s eternal presence in the kitchen or living room and feather light sleeping habits at home. Eddie never got to say what he truly meant living with a champion eavesdropper, and words simmered tirelessly in his mind, threatening to boil over, before he resolutely turned toward the door and shut it on the temptation and the memories, locking it for the last time. He returned the key to his RA downstairs, hoping to wash his hands of it finally, and returned to his car. 

Eddie set his palms back on the warm metal of the hood and reclined back onto it, standing at an angle, looking without seeing at his building. It took only minutes for Myra to finally appear, but it felt longer, space filled with not one real thought, colorflow memories Eddie tried not to let come too sharply into focus. 

“Hey!” 

“Hi,” Eddie said, opening his arms to her and receiving a much more welcome embrace, still half sitting on his hood. Myra held onto him for precious seconds, long enough for him to catch a whiff of her conditioner, something coconutty and fragrant. “You need any more help packing up your car?” he asked as she pulled away, hands on his shoulders, holding him at arm’s length. 

Myra shook her head, braving a smile that gripped at Eddie’s heart. “No, you got all of the heavy stuff taken care of this morning, I just had a few little things to take care of.” She was looking at him strangely, and Eddie felt an unwelcome pang of anxiety shock his spine into stiffness.

He thought of anything beside the box in her drawer. 

He cleared his throat, steadily straightening up to stand at his full height, hands light on her waist. “I’m not disappearing, Myra, it’s not that bad a drive.” 

“I know.” She snuck a peck, Eddie grinning despite himself. “It’s not that bad.” 

“You should actually probably get a move on if you want to make it before dark,” he said, checking his watch briefly. 

Myra was still watching him fondly. “You promise you’ll call?” 

“Yeah, I’ll call.” 

“And you still want to come up at some point?” 

“Of course.” Eddie swallowed, replacing his hand on her waist. “Legally, even if my mom calls the police, I’m too old to be categorized as a runaway, and if I left on my own volition I’m not technically a missing person even after 24 hours, so we should be covered if I want to come up for a weekend or something.” 

She laughed, and Eddie felt a little sore realizing that it hadn’t exactly been a joke. 

One last mushy kiss, perhaps the longest (and most public, in broad daylight in the middle of the parking lot), Eddie was left alone, Myra’s chapstick tacky on his lips. He tugged at the hem of his shirt and cleared his throat after their last goodbyes, then finally clambered into his car besides his piles of boxes. The lamp that had once lived in the living room sat shotgun. 

Eddie sat in his car for a moment, watching her walk away, feeling somewhat detached. It sucked, generally, that after getting used to seeing her this often, even if he still felt fumbly and awkward about the whole thing, that she’d be so far away. That Eddie would have the summer alone again at his mother’s place, placing calls all over the country again, speaking quietly and making loose plans to drive here or there, typically with little fruition. He wished Mike’s mom hadn’t moved down to Florida with him. Derry was much closer, and at this point, Eddie would have risked heading back just to see him. 

He thought idly about just how many hours he’d have to spend in the car to see Mike. Considered, briefly, almost unaware of it as he turned his key in the ignition, just exactly how long it would take him if he so decided to pay a visit to LA, how much he’d have to spend on gas and fast food on the way. 

The radio blared to life, much too loud, and Eddie scrabbled to turn it down, windows already open. 

_ “—find me. I forget myself, I want you to remind me,” _

“Shit,” Eddie swore as he recognized the song, face heating, frantic to jam the dial and somehow missing. “Fuck—” 

_ “I don’t want anybody else—” _

“Don’t fucking say it—” 

_ “When I think about you I t—” _

Eddie managed to shut the radio off at the last second, heart thrumming anxiously. He swiveled his head side to side, finding the car next to him empty, but another student looking at him with slight confusion and bemusement, carrying a box to her car parked on the other side of him. “What?” He barked, much too defensive as he threw the car into reverse. “It’s a stupid song.” 

Eddie idled on the curb outside the apartment for much too long once he pulled up, having hit traffic on the way home and still feeling as if it wasn’t enough time to himself before starting summer at home. He resigned himself eventually and brought in his duffle bag of essentials for the night, meaning to get the majority of his things inside after dinner. 

There were lima beans. Eddie ate them. Sonia asked idly how his girlfriend was doing, and Eddie realized that this time, he was actually discussing a real and actual girlfriend with his mother, not a theoretical one constructed to piss her off in front of her family. He’d powered through two tall glasses of milk to try and remedy the dryness in his throat during their stiff and idle conversation, then slipped away to more properly unpack before the sun fully sank below the horizon. 

He managed to empty his car and fill his room with carefully marked boxes just before nightfall, sweating in the last clinging touches of May heat, deciding he could use a shower before bed. He had a lot to rinse off from that year, and it would feel nice to try and wake up in the morning to a fresh start on the summer. Optimism is key. Or something like that. 

He noticed with mild annoyance as he started to undress in the small bathroom of the apartment that the light above the mirror was flickering. He stared at it for a moment, squinting, one amber bulb in the line of three above the mirror buzzing, electricity snapping on and off behind the dusty glass. He felt a little twinge in his temple. He was going to have to fix that in the morning. It was going to drive him absolutely nuts if he didn’t, and he had enough to feel absolutely nuts about as it was. He was going to have to make it through one shower with a faulty bulb, despite the sound of it making one of his eyes twitch. He’d find a new bulb when he didn’t feel rung out like a dirty dish rag, when he was clean and had a little more sleep under his belt. 

Eddie turned on the water and stripped down, glad for the way the mirror started to fog instantly. He didn’t think he could bear his reflection, happy to have a break from it. A break at all, a moment alone in the cramped apartment, the bathroom one of his only sanctuaries. He tested the water with his hand, yanking it back with a hiss. It had gone from ice cold to boiling in the time it took him to get out of his jeans, and Eddie reached carefully around the sinisterly steaming stream of water to turn the cold knob. He hoped he wouldn’t have to bug the landlord into looking at the hot water heater. Lord knew his mother never bothered, and it was never a fun conversation trying to explain to Brian that some maintenance issue or another had been going on for months but Sonia had simply not bothered to report it. 

The light flickered again, blinking out for a moment before metallically tinkling back to life. Eddie glared at it over his shoulder as he stepped into the shower and slid the door shut, as if he could spite it back into working properly. He could only hope there was no greater electrical issue. One exposed wire in a bathroom could spell a nasty demise.

With that cheery thought in mind, (and after a quick glance around the offwhite walls of the shower just to make sure nothing was poking out of the walls and waiting to electrocute him the moment he closed his eyes), Eddie tipped his head back into the water, letting it comb through his hair and down his stiff back. 

_ Give yourself a break, Eddie. _

He hummed, not sold. It felt as if there was too much going on to give himself a break, despite school being out. He did need to find a job for the summer, but he wasn’t usually hard pressed to find an office that needed a little help a few days a week. He needed to keep up with Myra, but that would only take a few phone calls a week and a couple long drives over the next couple months. He needed to call—

_ Home.  _

Stan, for one. He needed to know if he’d heard about Richie’s move, needed to know if he was alone in worrying about it. And while he was at it, he should probably call Richie. His initial shock and anger had subsided, but he was still worried some of his personal bitterness would come across on the phone. Regardless, he wanted to hear from him. That last phone call, while delivering devastating news, had, admittedly, been nice. Much better than Eddie was expecting when he’d shakily taken the phone from Greg. No confrontation. No outright rejection. Just fucking California.

Taking a breath, Eddie pressed a palm against the cool frosted glass of the door, stroking a hand through his wet hair. His handprint remained only for a second as a ghost on the glass before vapor silently erased it. 

How many hours was the drive? Forty hours nonstop? 

_ A break, Eddie.  _

“Fine, fuck,” he muttered automatically, thinking the voice did have a point. He’d been running himself a little more than ragged lately. 

He reached down to grab a bottle of shampoo from the floor and jumped, thinking for a moment the water had suddenly gone cold against his back. He straightened only to find that it was a chill running up his own spine, realization creeping up into his brainstem. 

That hadn’t sounded like the usual drone of Eddie’s inner monologue. It felt external. 

Frozen, Eddie stood completely silent in the shower stall, ears straining for anything beyond the thrum of water and buzz of the faulty bulb. His eyes found nothing, the cramped shower washed golden yellow in the dusty old lights. He jumped when he accidentally crumpled the plastic of the shampoo bottle, making a divot on one side. “Don’t be fucking paranoid,” he told himself aloud, trying desperately to settle as he popped the cap and squeezed to pop out the dent. The bottle huffed back to life, wheezing in a little gasp of steamy air, and Eddie squeezed out a dollop of shampoo into his hand before replacing it on the ground. 

He heard the light fizz again, the golden glow of the bathroom dimming slightly behind his closed eyelids as he rinsed his hair. The bulb finally died. He groaned aloud. “She should fucking call me if she needs something fixed, Jesus,” he muttered, absentminded, going now for the conditioner. It had better not be the actual wiring in the bathroom. Then again, he would have noticed the last time he’d come home if that was the case.

_ Lots wrong.  _

Eddie whipped around this time, swearing he heard something. Dread began to crawl up his spine, sinking tiny claws into each of his vertebrae as the water trickled cheerfully on. Talking aloud had provided some much needed sound in the eerie white noise of the shower, but his voice caught in his throat, offering him no more comfort. 

_ Lots needs fixing up there. _

“Who’s there?” he managed. It sounded stupid and scared aloud, his voice shrill in the otherwise empty bathroom. It ricocheted back to his straining ears off the wet walls, his breath elevating suddenly. 

No one answered save the flicker of the second bulb. Fear began to tighten around Eddie’s windpipe, a familiar sense of something deeply wrong crawling into his brain from the deepest recesses of his memory, doors not accessed for years, locks rusted over for good reason. He realized he was naked, which should have been a given, but the vulnerability of it struck him. His conditioner bottle was his only weapon to brandish. 

What felt like minutes ticked by with no other signs of trouble, but Eddie was far from being lulled into a false sense of security. He thought to shut off the shower, to give up and wake up with dry hair and sweat still stuck to him cut the loss, but his arm locked up half extended when he reached for the knobs, a sound stopping him in his tracks. 

A thick, mucus-like bubbling surged at his feet, and Eddie felt his head go light. His hand began to shake violently, eyes falling closed as a viscous pop came from the floor of the shower. 

_ All’s well down here, Eddie. _

It didn’t feel as if he looked down on his own volition. Something like gravity dragged his view downward, something the opposite of it peeling his eyelids open, forcing him to look. 

Reeking black sludge had begun to leak from the shower drain at his feet, tar-like bubbles crawling out of the ring of little holes on the guard and popping slowly, languid, releasing reeking clouds of stench. Eddie’s vision swam for a moment, brain not capable of making sense of the image for precious seconds before he thought to skitter back and away, yelping when his back hit the cool tile of the wall behind him. The second lightbulb chattered, sinking the bathroom into a sickly yellow light as it started to die out. He shook his head as if this would help, as if this was something he could simply deny, something that would go away if he wished hard enough. But the sludge crept forward, thick fingers of it reaching for his toes as he uselessly pressed his shoulder blades into the tile behind him with nowhere else to go. Panic began to fully grip him, wrapping tightly around his ribs and leaving him fighting for air in the thick steam of the bathroom. 

He screamed when a knock came on the door, tearing his eyes away from the horrible mirage in the drain only to hear his mother’s concerned voice drift in muffled from outside. Asking if he was alright, she’d heard him yelp. 

Eddie frantically glanced back toward the drain, miraculously finding it clear again, the bathroom lighting having brightened up, relief and a twinge of embarrassment taking over the panic in his throat. “Just dropped something, sorry,” he answered, voice still sounding reedy. He turned the conditioner bottle over in his hands, manually steadying his breath, praying she wouldn’t hear. He was trembling, breath shallow. 

Sonia was silent for a moment more, Eddie continually glancing down to the shower floor. The dead bulb clicked back on, startling him again. “Okay,” came his mother’s voice, somewhat unconvinced. “Let me know if you need anything, alright?” 

“Will do,” he muttered, trying to soothe himself as he ran his unsteady hand back through his hair. 

With trembling hands, Eddie squeezed conditioner into his palm, trying to shake the little episode. “You’re just stressed,” he muttered to himself when he was sure his mother had retreated. 

_ You get irrational when you’re stressed.  _

“Yeah,” he breathed. Stress could do a lot to a tired brain. He tried to deny the visceral feeling of unease in his gut, tried to shake off the headache cropping up in his temples, the warning sirens going off in his brain. Stressed. Imagining things. Not real. 

Eddie managed to get through the motions of rinsing his hair again without issue, but couldn’t help returning his glance to the drain. Nothing each time, nothing out of the ordinary. A gurgle once, but the building was old, the plumbing wasn’t perfect. Paranoia ran up and down his nerves, making him quake despite the warmth of the shower, and he had to work actively to keep himself calm just to finish his shower. So much for relaxing at the end of what had proved to be a harrowing school year. 

He placed a palm against the shower wall when he reached for the bar soap on the rack hanging off the shower head, avoiding the stream. When he straightened, the first bulb flickered. 

Died.

The second began to buzz, sounding like a jar filled with hornets, angry and feral. 

Eddie felt his rationality slip and drew in a shaky breath, dread sinking into his core as he risked another glance downward.

The water still ran clear, trickling easily down the silver drain. He sighed with relief, thinking it was over until he caught something out of the corner of his eye. His glance trailed slowly, cautiously, not wanting to see what was right before his eye, to the junction of the floor and the wall, a few inches upward, fear tightening around his organs. 

A thin line of stark red painted the tile. His breath caught. He followed it upward with horror to his own palm, still pressed firmly to the wall. He couldn’t bring himself to remove it for a moment, terrified of what he might see, needing it to steady himself when a wave of nausea crashed over him.

_ It can’t be real. It can’t be real.  _

Voice gone, sanity flickering to the rhythm of the bulbs, Eddie slowly drew his hand away and turned his palm up, feeling pain sear across it as a harsh slash seemed to open wide before his very eyes, blackred blood gushing hot from the wound and dribbling down his wrist. 

He hardly had a second to cry out before the drain gurgled and overflowed, the sludge seeping forth from the rattling pipes below, backing up the shower and leaving Eddie in standing water, rapidly greying. Frantic, he dashed helplessly toward the shower door only to slip in the slick, falling hard to his hands and knees on the unforgiving floor with a cry. He slipped sideways and kicked at the sludge helplessly, feeling his throat begin to close up, fingers tightening around his windpipe and silencing a scream. Comprehension failed him briefly, reason out the window when he felt the water temperature hike up as he thrashed. The floor was slick as if with oil, flooded now with the sludge, and he nearly pitched face first into it, his weeping and wounded hand catching him in the filthy water rapidly filling the shower. No sound came out when Eddie made to scream again, desperately banging at the door as the filth threatened to overtake him. He managed to cram his fingers between the door and the wall and shove it open as he collapsed onto one hip, feeling a cold squirming mass from the drain begin to slither up one leg. He clawed at the tile outside the shower, exposed skin stinging from the suddenly boiling hot water, catching only a dizzying glance backward at the mass now spewing from the drain.

Maggots by the thousands, slithering like a hivemind toward his feet. 

Gasping uselessly for breath, lights strobing wildly above the mirror, Eddie hauled himself out onto the bathroom floor, skin flushed from the now boiling shower water, legs dripping black with sludge. Grey maggots began to overflow from the lip of the shower floor as he managed to grip the lip of the sink, strength he didn’t know he had in him forcing him to his feet. He nearly fell again, chest burning without breath when his bleeding hand reached for the towel rack to steady himself, staining his white towel with bright red as he tugged it senselessly from the bar. He glanced his knee off the cabinet, hardly feeling it, wet hands grasping at the doorknob, already slick from condensation and steam. 

One foot slipped and threatened to take him down again as he felt the maggots starting to inch their way up one ankle, and he righted himself and stomped down, a sickening squelch making his head spin. His stomach turned, but he finally found his breath, crying out for his mother as his hands slipped uselessly off the doorknob. Cold fear nearly drowned him when he managed to get a solid grip and found it wouldn’t budge, the floor of the bathroom now slowly being overtaken by the reeking sludge and the maggots and the boiling hot water, Eddie unsure whether he was truly making any sound over the ringing in his ears and roar of the water and buzz of the lights and clatter of the unyielding door, which suddenly pitched open and threatened to knock him back, cool air breaking the suffocating wall in the bathroom. Eddie launched out, feet finding purchase on the carpet in the hallway, ears useful again when he heard his mother hysterically call his name when he blew past her.

The towel was somehow still in one hand, he threw it around his waist, frantic and senseless as he knocked his shoulder into the wall of the hallway and backed against it, reaching for his mother’s arm to pull her away from the—

From the—

Clear clean white tile of the bathroom. Lights on, bright and warm. The towel he held up with one fisted hand was white and fluffy, damp, but with no signs of blood, no slash on his palm. A glance downward proved his legs were free of the dripping sludge, though he was soaking the carpet with clear shower water. His ears began to ring again, Sonia’s panicked voice drowned out as Eddie stared at the intact bathroom, water running cheerfully.

He wheezed, chest still rising and falling rapidly, heart still flitting around his ribcage like a frightened bird. His throat felt sore, he’d been screaming nonsense and it hurt when it came back to a normal register, nothing more than a thin whine coming out after that. 

Sonia gripped his wrist hard, nearly jolting him back to reality, in absolute hysterics asking him what was wrong, taking him over momentarily with wild concern. Eddie felt like a diver who’d resurfaced too fast, the change in pressure making his head spin, eyes dropping to the floor as a dim vignette started to ring his vision.

Mercifully, his mother’s voice dropped off after a moment, the sound of his harsh breath the only thing filling his ears, the hallway swinging around him. 

Eddie caught sight of what could have been one stray maggot wriggling through the carpet below and dropped like a rock to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs referenced:  
> One - U2  
> I Touch Myself - Divinyls
> 
> Just to be clear, the Clown Is Not Really Active In This Plot, technically, but the idea here is that the events in Derry when the Losers were kids still played out how they did in the book/movies, as in Pennywise wasn't quite finished off in '89, but isn't actively terrorizing the town (or the losers) at the moment. 
> 
> Special thanks to Skrrrrt for their comment on chapter 9! I had no idea how that chapter was going to be received and I was so excited to get positive feedback on it that I wanted to try another horror sequence. I wouldn't have included this one without that encouragement and I wouldn't still be writing this thing without all the kind words I've received so far! 
> 
> Vital to note: It's early-mid May 1997 by the end of this chapter. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery was released on May 2, 1997. Austin Powers is now active in the cannon.


	18. AS IT TURNS OUT, IT ACTUALLY DOES RAIN IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

**QUEENS, NEW YORK**

**30 MAY 1997**

**2:03 PM**

“So you finally managed to stress yourself out enough to faint like an old woman?” 

Stan really had such a lovely way with words, Eddie thought. “Apparently so. I came to and my mom was physically trying to drag me down the stairs while on the phone with 9-1-1. I was in a  _ towel _ , for fucks sake.”

“Did you get to go for your monthly ride in the wee woo wagon?”

Eddie adjusted the phone on his shoulder, fork pausing in his bowl of noodles as his eyebrows sank down. “In the fucking  _ what _ ?” 

“The ambulance.” 

“Stanley.” 

“That’s the sound it makes.” 

“Did you get that one from Richie?” 

“No, Eddie, I’m also allowed to be funny sometimes.” 

“It wasn’t funny, Stanley, I was giving you an opportunity to blame someone else for your fucked up sense of humor.” He leaned back against the counter, turning his fork to bundle up the noodles on the prongs. “But no, I talked her out of getting me an ambulance, but she made me go to the ER anyway.”

“And they finally diagnosed you with a clinically overbearing mother?”

“She definitely still qualifies as malignant, that’s for sure. But they couldn’t really find anything wrong with me. Said I’m healthy as a fucking horse, but apparently I could stand to drink more water. I already drink more water than anyone I know, how much fucking water does one guy need to be considered hydrated?” 

“We are like seventy percent water.” 

Eddie shook his head. “I hate thinking about that, that should not be a real fact.” 

“So you just blacked out for no reason?” 

“Apparently. I just kind of figured I stressed myself out. I had kind of a long and confusing year, I was overthinking in the shower.” 

“Most people tend to calm down in a nice hot shower, and you give yourself a full blown panic attack?” 

“I’m pretty sure people don’t pass out when they have panic attacks.”

Stan sniffed on the other line, shifting. “You can, but it’s not common.” 

“Great.” 

“That sounds like a great way to kick off the summer. What are you even planning on doing all summer?”

Eddie sighed, shifting his grip on his bowl when his palm got too hot. He lifted the fork to his mouth, blowing on the noodles. “I was going to get a job, but my mom’s too worried about me having another ‘fainting spell’” here he made quotes with his fingers, despite Stan’s inability to see them “and cracking my head open on my desk. She doesn’t even want me driving, but I’m pushing that issue on account of the fact that she scared off the kid who used to deliver her groceries and we still need to eat.” 

“She still doesn’t drive?”

“No, I think it’s kind of exciting for her when she can order people to do her bidding.” Eddie checked over his shoulder instinctively, making sure Sonia hadn’t snuck back in the house after her haircut. “She’s got some friend of hers driving her around right now. I still think I’m going to figure out a way to make money around here somehow, I can’t just sit around for three damn months.”

“You could come visit me on the way to go see your girlfriend, you know. Those are two things you should definitely occupy yourself with soon.” 

“You and my girlfriend?” 

“Yeah,” Stan said, as if it was obvious. “What else do you have going on right now?” 

“Something about your phrasing is so off putting.” 

“You’re off putting in general.” 

“Do you want me to come visit or not?”

“As long as you don’t get so nervous driving up here that you pass out behind the wheel and bank off a ravine, instantly killing yourself.” 

Eddie rolled his eyes, quietly hopping up to sit on the counter and setting his bowl in his lap. “Always looking on the bright side of things, aren’t you, Stan?” 

“How  _ is _ the whole girlfriend thing going?” 

Eddie had to wonder why he asked like that. The whole girlfriend thing. “It’s good, I already told you all about it.” No new updates there. He’d called her a couple times when he had a moment of privacy and when he wasn’t on the phone with Stanley or Bev. Sometimes he just found himself dialing a number that wasn’t hers and having a slightly more enriching conversation, but that was fine. They were making it work, he guessed. “She’s working at some country club place up there somewhere.” 

“Patty’s helping out at an elementary school with a summer camp program. She said one of the kids reminded her a little too much of Richie over this past week, so I’m praying for her sanity. She’s tough, though, I think she can stand it.” 

“Did you ask about Myra just so you could talk about Patty?” 

“Maybe, or maybe I wanted to change the subject just slightly because you sound like a prisoner calling from death row every time you talk about Myra.”

Eddie pressed his mouth into a tight line, glaring across the kitchen to the clock. “I do not, I’m just—figuring it out. It’s technically long distance right now. It’ll be fine.” 

“Speaking of distance, Richie told me he’s leaving this week.” 

Eddie stuffed a forkful of noodles into his mouth, forcing himself to heavily consider his response before saying anything. Chew. Think. Feel slightly ill. Swallow. Speak. “Did he?” 

**WILLARD, MISSOURI**

**30 MAY 1997**

**1:03 PM**

Went sent Richie off with two firm warnings: while in California, he was not to get anyone pregnant, and he was not to get addicted to heroin. 

“Don’t even try it.” 

“Wentworth.”

“You’re going to get an offer, you’re probably going to get a lot of offers, but so help me God Richie if I find out you said yes even once—”

“The boy is not going to call you if you threaten him as we’re saying our goodbyes, Went,” Maggie said, shutting the back door of Richie’s car and leaning back against it. She plucked at the sleeve of Richie’s shirt, looking him over fondly one last time. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait until tomorrow? If you’re still set on making it in only two legs you’re not going to hit the halfway mark until well after midnight.” 

Richie nodded, tightening one strap on his backpack. It was the last thing he had to throw into his car, which looked laden down, sinking onto its back wheels. Poor thing. She just had to get him there, and they’d be fine. He could only pray she’d make it. “Yeah, I already gave my roommates an ETA for June first, I don’t wanna show up late. I’m getting my rent’s worth” 

“I think they’ll understand, honey, it took you a little longer to pack than anticipated.” 

He hadn’t been stalling. Not officially. But there was the fact that Ben was thinking about visiting Beverly sometime in June and Richie had maybe considered asking if he could swing by and pick him up and they could go together. He could put off the grand move until July, maybe. Make it in time to see fireworks on the Santa Monica Pier. 

He couldn’t help the sense of finality which came with finally migrating to the opposite coast. He knew he’d see everyone again, he knew this wasn’t a final goodbye to his parents, either, but it still felt overly heavy. “It’s okay, I’ll make it. I’m ready to get out of here anyway.” He gave his mom a grin and jumped when she pulled him in, squeezing him tight. It still felt odd to be able to look clean over her head, red curls fiery in the early summer sunlight. 

“If you need help getting a plane ticket home to visit please just let us know, we don’t mind.” 

“What, you don’t think I’ll be making twice as much as Dad once I get discovered and take off within my first month? A plane ticket will be nothing, I’ll be shopping for Ferraris in no time.” 

Richie was grinning when Maggie pulled back, but his expression fell slightly when he saw the worry in her face. “Please take care of yourself, alright?” 

“I will.” 

“And call as soon as you get there.” 

“Will do.”

“And keep in touch with your friends, it’s easy to get lonely in a new place.” 

Went jumped in then. “And if you really need to come back—” Maggie shot Went a look and he held his hands up in defense. “I just want him to know he has the option.”

“I know I have the option,” Richie said slowly, hoping it wasn’t betrayed in his voice that at that point he’d rather live in a cardboard box than turn tail and run home again. The option, while there, wasn’t one to take. 

“I don’t want you on the streets,” Went said, giving Richie a light punch to the arm. “That tends to reflect badly on your mother and I.” 

“And you’re already pariahs in the neighborhood because of your buck wild freak of a son, I know.” 

Went sighed. “Just don’t forget to call, alright?” His father pulled him in as well, and Richie relaxed for just a moment. He eyed their garage from over his shoulder, the gate to the backyard, the tree he’d broken his collarbone falling out of and the tattered rope swing he’d climbed all over with Kate after one of their first dates. Leaving Derry had been much harder, departing from his friends at an age where connection felt impossible when you weren’t a bike ride away, but this time Richie was armed with a phonebook and years of coordinating visits and phone calls and friendships from afar. They’d make it. What was a few hundred more miles? Just under two thousand. Could be worse. He swallowed, wondering if maybe Went was going to hold onto him until he changed his mind and heaved al his shit back into the house, then realized his dad was fiddling with the zipper on his backpack. 

“Dad—” 

“Is the—  _ Richard _ !” 

“What?” 

“You cannot take the cat with you to California.” 

He tried to turn away in time to hide Eleanor’s bony little head popping out of the central pocket, but it was over when she chirped and gave herself away. 

Richie spread his arms, dodging his mother’s attempt to pull the backpack off his shoulders, laughing. “So no heroin, no pregnancies,  _ and _ no cat? Do you want me to have any fun down there? What the hell else am I supposed to occupy my time with?” 

**QUEENS**

**2:04 PM**

“Interesting,” Eddie muttered. 

“Is it?” 

“No, actually, but good for him.” 

Stanley was persistently silent for all of twenty seconds. Eddie felt his face begin to burn, lip twitching. 

“What?” he spat. 

“Oh, nothing.” There was a little feedback on the other line, as if Stanley had shrugged the shoulder under the phone. “It’s just that you sound a little scorned and I can tell you’re going to miss him.” 

“Of course I’m going to miss him, Stan, everybody’s going to miss him. He’s just as far from me as he is from you and Bill, it’s not— a thing. I’m fine.” 

“Just say you’re gonna miss him—” 

“I already miss him, alright?” Eddie shook his head. “Fuck.” 

“Hey,” Stan said, voice heart wrenchingly consoling enough to make Eddie pause and swallow, “there’s nothing wrong with missing him.”

Eddie chewed his cheek. “I know.” 

“I have a question.” 

“Don’t you always?” 

“I know I asked in Chicago, but I feel the strange need to ask again. Have you been having nightmares?” 

A cold drop of dread trickled down Eddie’s spine. Stan’s voice felt far away for just a moment as Eddie’s vision shifted briefly out of focus and back in, eyes having landed on the sink drain. He felt his spine tense, an image that wouldn’t quite clarify doing it’s best to surface in his brain before something swallowed it down. But something was there nonetheless. His voice sounded far away, as if it wasn’t quite coming out of his mouth, off to the left somewhat. “Yeah, I— I actually think I might be.” 

“You  _ think _ ?”

“It’s complicated, Stan.”

“Everything with you is complicated.” 

**SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO**

**1 JUNE 1997**

**8:07 AM**

Richie hadn’t slept much in the motel halfway through the drive. Despite having been behind the wheel for twelve hours and having altogether too much time spent conscious and in his own head, he lay awake, sweating on the cheap Super 8 comforter in the dry New Mexico heat, stuck squarely halfway between home and his new apartment. Once he’d realized that sleep was hopeless, he’d simply stuffed his feet back into his sneakers and headed out again, blinking in the blinding desert sunlight earlier than he’d ever gotten up on his own volition. 

He’d expected maybe some trepidation, some overexcitement, a bout of mixed feelings, but Richie hadn’t expected to find himself pulled over on the side of the road in the absolute middle of the desert, hunched over with his hands on his knees, barfing on the sand caked shoulder. He’d started sweating the moment he left this hotel. He’d thought it might just be the heat, but he’d only lasted a few miles before he was dashing out of his car and into the scrubby brush on baby deer legs. Drenched in sweat, shivering as if there was a chilly breeze over the scrubland, Richie spat and wiped his mouth, steadying his breathing, not ready to try and stand fully upright. He just barely saved his sunglasses from slipping off his face and into his puke pile at the last second. Yellow aviators he’d purchased exclusively to enhance his experience of driving through the desert, wanting to feel like Raoul Duke and Gonzo careening wildly toward Las Vegas. He’d, admittedly, had to wear them over his regular glasses, seeing as he legally couldn’t drive without them and seeing as his dad refused to help him get prescription yellow aviators on short notice, so the feeling was already a little off. That, and he didn’t have a kickass convertible or a briefcase chock full of every drug known to man, or, in fact, anyone to play Gonzo in his passenger seat.

Once he was steady enough, Richie stood up fully, hand pressed to his stomach as he regulated his breathing, dizzy head on the slow swivel. 

Buzzards, honest to god buzzards swopped darkly overhead. 

And there was a cactus. Richie realized then that he had never seen a real cactus, except maybe in passing the previous night before he’d made it to his hotel, but there it was. Tall and green and prickly just like in the spaghetti westerns. There was even a flower on it, a big pink flower sprouting right out of one of the big sweeping cactus arms. Richie blinked at the thing, looking somehow equal parts absurd and perfectly natural. Seeing as he was in the desert, it was, in fact, perfectly natural, Richie being the outsider here, but Richie felt at that moment that if he heard a hawk scream or saw a tumbleweed roll by that his sanity might just finally snap. 

“What the fuck are you doing here, man?” he asked aloud, genuinely wondering. Addressing himself, not the cactus. The cactus seemed to belong there and be perfectly aware of its own purpose and placement. Sighing, Richie padded heavily back toward his car, slicking his sweat damp hair away from his forehead as he rested his hand on the door handle. His legs still felt shaky, mouth bitter and throat sore. “You’re from fucking Maine, how the fuck did you get all the way out here, Rich?” 

Despite the lack of an answer (hawk or tumbleweed or otherwise), Richie pressed on. 

It happened twice more before he crossed his last time zone. The third time he didn’t even bother to get out of the car, merely leaning trembling out the window and getting it over with, hoping he was out far enough that he wouldn’t get vomit all over his door. He thought he’d heard somewhere that it was actually pretty difficult to get carsick when you were the one driving, but he couldn’t be bothered to think further on it. He merely recalled the last time, really the only other time he’d been carsick, on the way from Derry to Willard. But never to and from Boston, strangely. Just the one time. And now again. 

“And hopefully never fucking again, Jesus,” he said around the chewed up straw of a McDonald’s Sprite somewhere in Arizona, trying desperately to settle his stomach. 

The sunset, as it had been the previous night, was nothing short of spectacular, but only signaled to Richie’s brain that he was bone tired and hadn’t had nearly enough sleep or decent food since leaving home behind. The remainder of the drive dragged horrendously. Richie only had fuzzy radio stations to keep him company, their patchiness and the need to scan around every twenty minutes for a semi-clear signal the only thing keeping him occupied. The sky gradated in technicolor, something about it feeling like a movie seen in color for the first time, giving him at least something to look at besides the endless stretch of unforgiving highway. 

His steering had started to stiffen up once he finally crossed his last state line into California, arms tense on the wheel as he kept the poor old car in check. The breaks stuck a few times, leaving Richie to frantically wedge his shoe under the pedal to jam it back up and keep from getting rear ended once he finally reunited with traffic. Sweating, (Richie feared sweating was now going to be a very big part of his life now closer to the equator than he’d ever been) Richie prayed the car would hold up for the last leg, hating the image of scrambling to find a mechanic with no more cash left for a hotel stay and no more patience for the journey. Streetfighter was chugging, but still running, and Richie could only hope that she’d simply keep rolling. 

Richie passed his first palm tree in semidarkness, realizing he still had his tinted sunglasses on and tearing them off for a better look. He must have slowed down, as he was honked at and careened around, but he, at that point in the trip, couldn’t bring himself to care. It was his first tangible sign of being  _ there _ , the palm tree, and despite the throwing up and horrible waves of doubt and nausea which had plagued him the entire journey, he was there. Really and physically there. He wanted to shout, but his voice wouldn’t come, forced to pass the towering thing in awed silence as the sky sank slowly into navy and his exhaustion pushed at the edges of his vision. 

He had his new address scribbled on the western edge of his map, and once he finally peeled off the highway, things started to get hairy. He hadn’t brought a proper map of LA itself, merely relying on the greater map of the state to try and navigate, which had been downright idiotic once it came down to it. He stopped by a gas station to find a map and a flashlight so he could actually see it once the sun finally went down, taking his first few steps in California into a dank little 7 Eleven. 

He was surprised to find the cashier was more interested in directing Richie himself than selling him the actual map. 

As it turned out, he’d somehow stumbled across what was nearly the right neighborhood and didn’t have far to go. He swapped out the map and flashlight for a pack of Marlboros and a new lighter, one featuring what looked like an Eagles album cover, and dashed back to his car, reciting street names aloud so as not to forget them in his rush to get to what was hopefully soon going to be home. 

The car was rattling now, the chugging having raised in volume and the vibrations through the frame graduating to quaking. Richie swore several times as he tried to wrangle the now completely stuck steering wheel into submission, nerves again taking him over and desperation clawing at his senses. He just had to make it home, wherever that was now, a place he’d never ever set foot in, and the stupid car just had to get him there. Then she could break down once and for all. 

Richie had no say in it in the end. Streetfighter took her final breath, exhaling with a wheeze, frame sinking down onto her rubbery tiers which seemed to melt into the tar on the asphalt below. Weezer sang mockingly from the radio. Richie wanted to panic, wanted to get out and kick the rims and get behind her and shove her pathetically the rest of the way down the street, roll her up to the top of the next hill and push her down and hope she’d get going again, but when he clambered desperately out onto the street with the frantic image of himself rummaging uselessly around in the steaming engine which he had no understanding of, he caught sight of the number on the building across the street. 

Bile still burned at the back of his tongue, but his shoulders finally relaxed, sinking down slowly as realization dawned on him. “You incredible janky little bitch.” 

Streetfighter had made her final journey and landed him right outside of his new apartment. 

“Well if that isn’t just spectacularly symbolic,” he muttered, throwing his door shut. He noticed a stray splash of puke beside the handle that must have landed on his last bout of carsickness and winced, wishing he could at least take her to a car wash one last time and clean her up, thank her for her service. But Richie had a feeling Streetfighter would never move on her own volition again. She’d simply been through too much, seen too much, and was ready to close her final chapter. 

Absolutely no turning back now. 

Richie wanted to count himself lucky, really, but he was a little caught up in the fact that he’d just arrived in a new city and was, most likely, not going to have a goddamn car. Could one walk LA? He was certainly going to have to find out. He scrubbed his hand through his hair and turned toward the apartment, taking a breath. Time to open the next installment. 

He’d got in contact with one of his soon-to-be roommates through a friend in Boston who’d heard he wanted to move out west. Things had fallen almost too easily into place: it was a cramped three bedroom apartment, but they had an extra room, and their fourth roommate had just moved out. 

Back home. 

To Idaho. 

Trying not to dwell on that bad omen, Richie had accepted the offer immediately and had received an address and a phone number and now— there it was. 

The physical apartment, previously sight unseen, situated on a flat street reeking of hot baked asphalt and, most promisingly, lined with palm trees like the one that had greeted Richie into the city. Maybe not lined, actually, more like dotted with little clusters of what looked like sad real life renderings out of the Lorax, unkempt silhouettes against the navy blue sky. 

Resigning himself, accepting that the only way to go now was forward, Richie shouldered as many bags as he could in one go and went to ring the buzzer for the second floor apartment in the little orange stucco building. 

“So there’s no bed.” 

“Okay.” 

“Last guy took it with him.”

“Right.” 

“It was kind of unexpected. We really thought he’d leave at least the bed.” 

“It’s— look, it’s fine—”

“Or maybe a dresser or something.” 

“I don’t—” 

“He really didn’t have to take the curtains. That’s an eastward facing window and the sunlight is a real bitch in the mornings—”

Richie held up his hands to try and stop Ned, who was the one who had answered the door and was decisively not the roommate he’d been speaking to on the phone over the past month. Randy, apparently, was out, as was the third roommate, Javier, leaving Richie to Ned’s devices. Ned hailed from Florida. This was all the information Richie had on him thus so far. He cleared his throat. “Listen, man, I have some blankets and shit in my car, I can sleep in the backseat there or on the floor here tonight—” 

“Oh, you don’t wanna sleep in your car.” 

Richie blinked, not wanting to ask. Ned looked him over blankly but kindly. Richie had a feeling he might like him if he wasn’t so god awful tired. “So, okay, I’ll just. I’ll make up a little nest on the floor here, I can definitely make something work uh. In here.” 

In here was realistically no bigger than a standard broom closet. Richie had a feeling a twin sized bed would be hard pressed to fit at all, and even then would take up nearly the entirety of the room. Even then, the only proper door was a set of french doors positioned inconveniently behind the couch. One wall had an open doorway to the kitchen. A suspension shower curtain rod held an ugly patterned sheet to separate the two rooms. There was not nearly enough wall space for all the posters Richie had brought with him. There was hardly enough room for him and his record player to fit without bumping elbows. 

But he was there, he tried to remind himself. He was there and that was what mattered. “Could I use the phone really quickly, actually? I should probably let my mom know I didn’t get eaten by coyotes in the desert or something.” 

Ned led him to the phone back out in the cramped living room, which housed a table laden with junk and surrounded by a few mismatched stools, the musty couch, and a small TV littered with cables connected to a few different gaming systems. The phone was cowering in a corner of a side table next to a smattering of cans and an overflowing ashtray. 

On first glance, Richie ferociously loved the place. It was every bit as shitty as it rightfully should have been, and part of that excited him. It wasn’t exactly like the movies, but it was on par, and it only signaled an exciting plot to come. Rising actions. All that good stuff. 

Richie was really very burnt-out excited until he picked up the phone and held it to his ear, hearing only a ghostly disconnected tone. 

Ned must have recognized the devastated look on his face, watching Richie flicker with exhausted panic for only a second as he realized his only connection to familiarity was cut and gave him a sympathetic frown. “Shit.” 

“I uh—”

“It was Randy’s turn on the phone bill, sorry about that, man.” 

“It’s— I’ll just call her tomorrow. She can stand a little suspense. And I think she probably knows I’m just dumb enough to forget to call but not quite dumb enough to get mauled by a wild animal.” 

Ned laughed and Richie thought it was just to humor him for a moment, but no. There was something genuine about it. Richie couldn’t help but crack a smile. 

“You’re funny, dude.” 

“I try.” 

“I’m off tomorrow, I don’t mind showing you around.” 

Richie fell asleep without issue and dreamed without any recollection of it in the morning. He woke up to blinding boiling sunlight washing over him from his window, squinting and grumbling complaints until his eyes adjusted and he caught sight of the palm leaves swaying lazily on the other side of the glass, drooping in the evident heat. 

As it turned out, Ned worked at a Blockbuster not altogether too far from the apartment. Conveniently enough, they were hiring. Ned promised to introduce Richie to his boss the next time he worked, get his feet under him. The skeptic in Richie thought to think twice about the ease with which he suddenly found himself with a place to live and a job, but the dreamer in him silenced it and told him to count his damn blessings and focus on acclimating.

Richie liked to boast that he’d lived for a few years in a big city, that he wasn’t the bumpkin that his Missouri plates betrayed him to be, but Los Angeles was absolutely alien to a boy whose only city credit was Boston. Ned did have a functioning car and was willing to drive Richie around (at least for the day) while he hung out the passenger side window like a golden retriever, mesmerized at every turn. 

Richie had spent years with a vague concept of California in mind, with images of movie stars and sprawling beaches and jazz bars and musicians and hope and dreams and vivid vibrant sometimes violent riots of color, but what had taken him by the most surprise initially was the seagulls. 

There were seagulls in Maine.

Grey and white little devils screaming overhead, terrorizing the banks of the rivers and craggy, lighthouse dotted coast. Seagulls. They sounded the same here, they flew the same here, banking on cool breezes high above the pressing heat below in Ned’s little compact car, and Richie couldn’t help but marvel at them, the only familiar thing so far, something so unexpected and comforting he waxed poetic about it for a moment. 

Then they’d broken out of the urban stretch and Richie caught sight of the Pacific Ocean. 

Admittedly, it served as a brilliant backdrop to a scene that Richie could hardly believe. 

“Oh, no fucking way, this cannot be real,” Richie said, practically hanging half his torso out the window for a better look. 

Ned grinned at him, happily turning onto a more open and winding stretch of road that ran just along the beach, the smell of sand and saltwater overwhelming the small cabin of the car. 

Richie’s breath was a little short, too many colors and movements to take in at once pinging his brain into overdrive, the smile on his face unabashed and unapologetic. There were people everywhere, people the likes of Richie had never seen before, clad in neon and clashing patterns and sometimes hardly any clothes at all. A girl breezed past the in a nothing but a bright red bikini top and shorts, brilliant white roller skates almost too bright to look at in the mid afternoon sun. Richie’s mouth hung slack as she turned around, skating backwards with no effort, laughing as a friend on a skateboard struggled to catch up. 

There were dogs and surfboards and ice cream cones, the scent of sunscreen and sweat heavy even outside, everything heavily saturated and practically glittering. 

Richie thought for a moment he might be in heaven. Ned humored him and found a place to park, letting him run wild on the beach for a moment, captivated by the stony sidewalks caked with golden sand and the thick rough trunks of the palm trees, walking on air despite his heavy canvas sneakers sinking into the loose sand. Music drifted in from everywhere, from passing car radios and boomboxes and speakers far away on the pier, which must be  _ the _ pier, which was nothing like the salty barnacle crusted piers of the east coast which offered nothing but a good place to sink crab and lobster cages. Richie thought for a moment that if he headed quietly enough in the direction of the pier he might catch sight of a mermaid underneath, the place felt so unreal. Ned let him bop around aimlessly for a while, excited about everything, overstimulated in a way that made his skin buzz pleasantly, head of dark hair hot and nose pink from just a new minutes out in the blistering southern California sun. 

Richie didn’t need the tinted sunglasses to understand why they called this the Golden State. 

He chattered distractedly once Ned herded him successfully back to the car under the promise of lunch, unable to care if he was scaring off a new friend by talking too much. If he didn’t find somewhere to put everything that was racing through his head, all the unbridled exhilaration, he was going to burst like an overfilled water balloon, skin drawn tight over all the thrill. 

The cars, which Richie knew almost nothing about, were absolutely awesome. Richie wished he had a camera to show Eddie later, wished he could get him on the line immediately and ask him what kind of car that red convertible was. Eddie would have been blown the fuck away, Richie thought, and he tripped over Ned’s name when he leaned back into the car to point out a spectacular neon sign perched on the front of a beachfront building. 

Richie missed the beach and the pier the moment Ned started to drive even vaguely away from it, eyes trained on the rearview mirror, fearful for a desperate moment that the whole thing was a mirage he’d never see again. 

They drove by another beach spot on the way to one of Ned’s favorite taco stands and Richie could have cried from relief in seeing it again. Ned got him to quiet down even a little bit by treating him to him a taco and forcing him to do something else with his hands and mouth for a moment, but Richie scarfed it down fast enough to give himself heartburn and sat at the table, practically vibrating, trying to hush and drink it all in. 

Ned finally got a word in when Richie semi-settled after he sucked down his soda. 

“So, what do you want to do?” 

“I’m not gonna lie, I know this is the first touristy thing you think of, but I really really wanna see the Hollywood sign if it’s not too far away, that’s been on my bucket list since I was like ten—” 

“No, I mean here.” 

“Here?” Richie asked, glancing around. Here was LA, here was where he wanted to see the Hollywood sign. He really did. And he was pretty sure it was the only place to see it. “Is that— is it too far away? I can wait on that, it’s fine—” 

“No, I mean like why did you move out here all the way from Minnesota?”

“Mis— uh.” Richie’s brain slowed to a screeching halt for a second. The reason was on the tip of his tongue, easy. It’s Los Angeles. It’s  _ California _ . It’s the Golden State, it’s where dreams come true, it’s where culture is made— and suddenly all of that seemed like a very juvenile thing to say aloud. Coming to LA because it was LA was, in hindsight, maybe a little foolish. 

The vibrant colors around him seemed to dim slightly as reality crept back in, as the fact that he couldn’t simply run around with the bikini clad girls on the sidewalks by the beach for a living smacked him squarely in the face.

Dumbass still needed a  _ job _ . He had rent. 

His voice was dry when it came out, gesturing loosely. “I mean I did radio back at school. In Boston.” 

“Oh, Massachusetts, sorry.” Ned took a truly deep bite of his burrito and nodded. “Long drive. But radio?” 

Richie had begun to sweat, jeans heavy on his skin. He’d realized, a few hours into this, his first official day there, that he was going to have to quickly become a shorts guy, but this had nothing to do with the heat (which was actually pleasantly dry and not swampy like Maine and Missouri summers). “Yeah, I was a disk jockey.” For the university radio station. Which broadcasted to the campus. And that was about it. He was hardly the voice of Boston. 

“Can’t you do that anywhere?” 

“Well, yeah, but this is like—” Richie had to stop himself from saying  _ this is Los Angeles _ . He had a feeling Ned knew that already. “This is the place to be.” 

“How do you even— do disk jockeys even make any money?” 

Richie stared blankly across the table, the red of the umbrella reflecting pleasantly on Ned’s sweet round face. His gaze was neutral but somehow deadly accusatory, picking Richie apart from the inside out. Richie held tightly onto his napkin, hearing a skateboard and a boom box pass by him without hardly noticing. He blinked, the truth pulled from him. “You know, Ned, I honestly don’t know.” 

“Okay, so disk jockey is the dream? Just a west coast disk jockey this time? Who actually makes money?” 

“Not— no, I mean I really loved it, I actually really really miss it, but I’ve gotta move on from that.” Probably on account of the fact that maybe disk jockeys didn’t make enough for both rent and groceries. Not to mention a new car.

“Are you like an actor or a— no, you’re definitely not a singer.” 

Richie blinked. “I mean I don’t— no, I’m not really here chasing the whole Hollywood scene.” Although, honestly? If life should steer him that way he wouldn’t be mad. It was more about avoiding the cliche. Move from small town to get big role in major movie, make money, be the next Rock Hudson. 

“You have a guitar, right?” 

“I can kinda play guitar.” 

“You look more like a bass guy.” 

He swallowed, throat utterly dry. “I do?”

“Yeah.” Ned shrugged and took another monster bite. “I 'unno why.”

“Okay,” Richie said, starting to wring his hands. “Bass guy. I could do that.” 

“You good at guitar?” 

“I know a couple songs. I know— I do, I— I can play Wonderwall.” 

Ned, at that point, finally shook his head. “You said earlier you’ve been dying to come out here since you were a kid, what was the dream when you were a kid?”

He felt his face reddening, the sad realization that all of his childhood fantasies were, perhaps, just that, adolescent fantasy, sinking in a little too quickly. He thought again of his caput car, thinking briefly if he should desperately try and haul it out to a mechanic and see if it would make it at least to Kansas. His dad could pick him up from there. There was also Greyhound station in Springfield, but if he went that he’d have to leave most of his stuff at the new apartment, and he’d already lost a month of rent in advance.

The truth tumbled again out of his mouth, his shoulders sinking down, gaze unable to find Ned’s again. “I uh. I wanted to be a ventriloquist.” 

“A what?”

Richie realized, face burning, that his voice had dropped to a murmur. “A  _ ventriloquist _ ,” he said, overcompensating and practically yelling it, making the both of them cringe. 

Ned stared at him, wide eyed, a clump of guac falling sloppily from his burrito wrapper onto the table. “Huh. Okay. Well—” 

“But I can’t throw my voice. Like at all. It’s actually really really bad,” Richie admitted, unable to stop himself now. He was on a roll of embarrassing himself that wouldn’t quit till he’d spilled his guts, apparently. “But I can do voices and accents and impressions and shit, I’ve actually gotten really good at that and that’s in part why the radio thing worked out for a while—” 

“Why don’t we just get you started at Blockbuster?” 

Richie clammed up, nodding at his lap. He swallowed again, then picked up his Pepsi, realizing he’d left it abandoned. It was already warm. “Yeah. Yup.” He took a drink, unfazed by the heat of it. When he could finally meet Ned’s eyes again after a long and awkward stretch of silence, he asked, “So what do you wanna do?” 

“I also kinda wanna see the Hollywood sign, I haven’t been down there in a while. There’s always a bunch of crazy people milling around, it’s kind of funny. There’s always those guys who paint themselves all gold or silver and pretend to be statues. Maybe you could do th— no, you move around too much.” He took another bite of his burrito, mouth full. “Ne’ermind.” 

It turned out that Ned wanted to be a director, and figured that renting out VHS tapes to teenagers and exhausted looking parents was his first step into the world of film. While part of Richie dearly wanted to question this line of reasoning, he couldn’t exactly say shit when it came to anyone’s life plans or dreams, seeing the state his were in. 

He met Randy and Javier once they’d arrived back at the apartment. Randy, a redhead with glasses and fairly ferrety disposition, was the one he’d had a mutual friend with back at school. Javier was the only local Richie had met so far: a skinny, laid-back looking guy who apparently owned the surfboard which took up most of the hallway to the bathroom. The first thing people asked each other seemed to be where they were from, and Richie wondered if anyone (save Javier) was actually born and raised in LA. 

It made him wonder if most of the locals grew tired of it and left. 

Richie started at Blockbuster, which really wasn’t all that bad, and in fact gave him access to a seemingly endless supply of movies at five free rentals a week. The store was also down the street from a record shop and around the corner from a theater, which only sweetened the deal. It wasn’t the beach with the girls on roller skates, but it made him some money and gave him something semi-worthwhile to do. 

Richie hit the beach a few times, which always made him feel better about the whole situation. He may be somewhere new without much of an ultimate plan, but at least he could laze around on the sand and chase the seagulls and be somewhere new and bright and exciting when he got down on himself. Richie unfortunately discovered that he sunburned miserably and incredibly quickly, and had to bond fairly quickly with Javier, keeper of the aloe plant in the apartment, after falling asleep on his stomach on a towel one sunny day at the beach while his roommate surfed. Jaiver, with much grace, did not mention having to rub aloe into a twitching and swearing Richie’s back, for which he was eternally grateful. 

Richie had more dreams he forgot, and one he remembered. One where his headlights stared down a dark desert highway, mile markers ticking steadily eastward, counting down the miles back  _ home _ . Richie could never tell exactly where he was headed, but he was going there fast, be it Willard or Boston or  _ home _ , he was headed there fast and his car was falling apart below him rather than rusting stationary in the street outside the apartment. He passed the same cactus every ten miles or so, one with stiff sprawling arms and a single pink flower sprouting impossibly from it, passed it again and again until the desert just began to soften and cool, until the lizards and buzzards turned quickly to deer which dashed past him on either side of his car. His heart raced the closer he got to  _ home _ , more of a feeling than a specific place, his chest bubbled with a strange and uncontrolled laughter, which stopped abruptly along with his car, tires screeching, when he came across a slaughtered doe stretched across the road, neck swept back graceful and gruesome. More littered the shoulders of the road, more still stretching out beyond the reach of Richie’s headlights, mauled and bloody. A Something always crept out of the darkness stretching out before him, Something snarling and drooling, vicious and untamed, Something that stood still and refused to advance unless Richie did, and Richie didn’t. He turned tail and ran back west. 

Each time. 

Richie realized the dreams he was forgetting were simply recurring instances of the Something in his headlights on the way  _ home _ .

Richie went to parties, which were LA’s special brand of alien, but he teased himself thinking he felt himself slotting in more easily each passing weekend, each passing laugh he earned from one of Randy or Ned’s friends. Each question asked about him, each time anyone deemed him interesting enough to engage with in a town where everyone had an exciting story, and his was more than lackluster. His Dr. Evil impression killed, and he even found an excuse to take a cool girl out to see the movie one afternoon. She never called him again, but he had a good time. He thought it was a pretty good time. 

Richie missed his friends at night in the cool darkness of his tiny room, he missed his parents, he used his first paycheck to pay off the phone bill so he could call them whenever he pleased instead of using the payphone outside the 7 Eleven. 

Oddly, Richie had to buy a new phone for the apartment within a month. It wouldn’t connect any time he dialed one of the numbers in his phonebook, Stan and Bill and Beverly’s lines giving him nothing but static when he tried to call to give them his new number. The new phone worked a little better, but still seemed to be on the fritz whenever he tried to phone any further east than western Nebraska. 

Richie did a lot of talking his first few weeks in LA. Not many did a whole lot of listening, but Richie grew hoarse regardless. He learned the names of the local bars, learned which ones to avoid, learned the names of new favorite drinks, gave his name to his favorite bartenders. Found some new favorite movies courtesy of Ned, who was actually spectacularly pleasant to watch movies with. Randy knew the address of every house party at the end of every week and exactly how to get you there, Javier knew the best times to avoid or dive into crowds at the beach, Ned knew how to keep Richie sane and tame in a way he was eternally grateful for. 

But despite the fast pace, the beach and the girls and, yes, eventually, the Hollywood sign, which was smaller in person and honestly a little lackluster, Richie had started to feel slightly out of place. 

He started to feel alone again. 

At home, he had Kate and his parents, he really didn’t have much else beyond that. He got along with his manager at the donut shop. He could spend seven hours in the car to see Ben or Beverly if he really so desired. But it felt distant and sad and lonely, pressingly so, which was why he’d left in the first place. Feeling alone. Stuck. 

And there he was, in a brand new place with brand new people with old stories and jokes to tell that they’d never heard before and would laugh at the first time. LA was desperately crowded and oddly inviting, anyone would stop to chat with you on the street. The 7 Eleven guy even knew his name and seemed to be growing fond of him. But Richie was starting to feel alone again, alone despite being constantly surrounded by people. Alone in his apartment despite the three other roommates, despite the stray cats by the gas station he’d befriended, despite the teenagers eager for his movie recommendations at the Blockbuster. Work, actually, wasn’t all that different, even if the clientele was a little more colorful. But Richie only felt like an extra in their movie, a character with a one off-line for comedy relief and not so much as an honorable mention in the credits, alone despite being packed into a city with one of the highest population densities in the country. Richie was worried that this alone would send him running home to Mom and Dad, running home to anywhere familiar, running home to a place closer to the people that he knew loved him and that he wasn’t as worried about impressing every god forsaken day, just as worried that maybe he would feel this alone no matter where he went. 

Worried that this alone, which had started to prompt a few more visits to the bar around than maybe strictly necessary, would prompt some pathetic phone call entirely across the country, that this alone would prompt Richie to drunkenly describe a red convertible and desperately ask if Eddie knew what kind of car that might be, just to talk to him. Just to hear his voice, just to ask him if he’d broken up with that girl yet, just to check in, Eds. 

Richie could feel himself slipping, could feel it when the day trips to the beach weren’t cutting it, could feel the pressing sense of  _ you made a mistake, buckaroo _ began to close in. Maggie reassured him on the phone it was just culture shock, he was just taking time to figure things out, it would resolve. She believed in him, he’d be okay, he could tough it out and make it work. Richie, hanging up with misty eyes, realized he didn’t really believe her. Alone was a powerful thing.

At one point, curled on the mattress on the floor he swore he was going to get around to buying a bed frame for, aching from the chest out, thoughts jumbled with nostalgia and fear of the unknown, dry palm leaves scratching ominously at his uncovered window, Richie honestly  _ wanted _ to go home. 

And then he met Sandy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my dad lived in/hitchhiked through california in the 70s and honest to god the only things i know about it are that people love to tell you directions and they call flip flops "slaps" there? my dad still calls them slaps. its an alien planet to me. apologies to anyone from california for inaccuracies. i am from st. louis. just pretend thats what cali was like in the 90s


	19. SANDY

**LOS ANGELES**

**14 JULY 1997**

**3:16 PM**

In the heat of California, Richie couldn’t stop thinking about the chill of Chicago. 

It started to plague him the longer he was there, the sensory memory of goosebumps raising on his exposed arms, hair raising, people he wanted nothing more from than to be near to gathered around him on a rooftop, dancing. The brief collision between him and Eddie, chest to chest, poised to swing each other around, broken a second later by the call to climb back down the stairwell into real life. 

Chin in hand, Richie’s blue and yellow Blockbuster polo stuck to him with sweat in the pressing heat of the afternoon, fans droning lazily behind the counter providing a steady white noise over the drone of the day. The heat of July was in full swing, the likes of which Richie had never experienced. It was so much hotter than it ever got at home, but the dry heat wicked sweat off the back of his neck in the same way the humidity usually encouraged it. 

It felt like being high when they were all together, sometimes, the way that an acid trip felt like a short venture tangential with reality. Everything that happened during it still happened, it still affected the next day, but it happened elsewhere. Sandwiched between real and fantasy. Richie had been craving it like an addict, going through withdrawals from the Losers, the occasional phone calls not quite cutting it. Regret had started to sink in, even when he’d gotten his eyes set on a trashy used car and had opened a savings account to save up for it, thus giving him the illusion of freedom to travel again. Streetfighter was finally towed and scrapped, etching Richie’s name into an empty grave in California. He’d done it, he was here, and while he didn’t need to get out, he still sometimes he wanted to. 

“That girl rented Top Gun again,” Ned said somewhere, maybe 200 miles off to his right. Richie hummed. “Third time this week.” 

“I guess she likes Top Gun,” he added helpfully. 

“It seems a little excessive. Do you think she’s like, into Tom Cruise?” 

Richie picked his head up, staring Ned down over his glasses. “I think there may be several people who are into Tom Cruise, actually. Are you stalking rental histories again?” 

Randy saved him from answering by appearing around one of the towering shelves of VHS cases, a movie in hand. “Richie, could I use one of your free rentals for this?” 

“As long as it’s not porn,” Richie sighed, turning to adjust one of the fans so it would blow directly on him where he stood instead of rotating. 

“That was once.”

“It was twice,” Ned said, making Randy deflate slightly. 

Richie took the case from him, pecking aimlessly at the computer to log the title. He paused. “Randy, I already own this. Don’t waste a rental on it, just borrow mine.” 

“What?” 

Richie went to hand the case back. “I have the first one too.” 

Ned, nosy, intercepted. “Nightmare on Elm Street?”

“The second one. Freddy’s Revenge, see?” Randy pointed out. 

“Why the second one?” 

“I’ve never seen it, I just thought I’d try it.” 

“Why are you trying it in the middle of summer? It’s a horror movie.”

“Horror movie viewings, contrary to popular belief, dear Nedward, are not limited exclusively to October.” He snatched the case back from Ned and handed it to Randy. “Put this back, I’ll watch my copy with you tonight if you want.” 

“Tomorrow night,” Randy promised, patting Richie’s arm. “Tonight we’re going out.” 

Such was Randy’s favorite phrase. Richie was hard pressed to ever find him in their apartment, which was really only bothersome when it was his turn to do the dishes. “It’s— it’s Wednesday, man.” 

“So what? Are we in school or something?” Javier, in fact, was the only one in their apartment still taking classes. Ned wasn’t typically the party type and often dipped early. “My buddy Drew is hosting a little something at his new place, it’s fucking awesome. Big balcony and everything. He’s gay, though.” 

Richie had noticed an ant marching silently across the counter and looked up to find Randy eyeing him. “What?”

“Is that cool with you?” 

Richie’s eyebrows sank down. These questions never settled well with him, sitting like flat Sprite at the pit of his gut. It always felt simultaneously like whoever was asking knew too much and too little at the same time. “Why wouldn’t that be cool with me, Randy, I live in LA just like you for chrissake.”

“Yeah, but you’re from like.” He waved a hand vaguely. “Middle of nowhere.” 

“I went to school in  _ Boston _ .” 

“Are there a lot of like— is that big there?” Ned asked, seemingly innocently.

“I wish I knew why the fuck I always end up in these conversations,  _ I _ never fucking ask. I don’t care that your friend is gay, I’m more concerned as to why the fuck I’m being dragged to a party at his place tonight. It’s still Wednesday.” 

“Because otherwise you’ll just sit at home and glare at the phone like it called your mom a bad word,” Ned offered. “Again.” 

Richie stared at him for a long moment, wondering if Ned was some special kind of introspective or if Richie was just that fucking obvious with everything. “Who ever said you’re allowed to say those kinds of things to anyone, Ned? You can’t just fucking lay me out like this at my place of work.” 

Ned smiled almost shyly and lifted a shoulder. Randy sprawled over the counter, hands hanging limp on Richie and Ned’s side. “Just show up, man, you can go home whenever you want. It’s not like you can accidentally drive drunk, you don’t have a car. The cure for loneliness is meeting new people, right?” 

“I’m not convinced.” 

“We can split a handle of Jack, my treat, how’s that?” 

Richie mulled it over for only a moment, considering the contents of his bank account and how much he’d end up blowing alone at a bar if he got lonely past 10 PM and wanted out. “I don’t like that you know I’m so easily bought.”

“So you’ll come?” 

“Aye aye, cap’n, I'm off at eight.” 

There was a threshold to be broken when you arrived at a party sober. Social graces were reserved for those on the same level of intoxication, and things always felt awkward when you were the last to get to drinking. Randy had only remembered their whisky at the last moment, making Richie stop by a drugstore on the way to the party and hiding his paper bag under his striped shirt as if they, two men of age, weren’t supposed to have it. 

Randy had a tendency to disappear quickly and reappear in flashes throughout the night, so Richie made sure to coerce him into the kitchen quickly so he could take down a couple shots before he wandered off with the bottle. Two shots got him a buzz, a buzz was good, a nice and easy social lubricant where Richie found it a little harder to tamp his personality down and whoever he was interacting with found it a little more difficult to be put off by him immediately. Three to four shots got him interested in exploring the apartment, which was, as previously stated by Randy, fucking awesome. The lighting struck Richie immediately. Each room was a different color, buzzing with a frantic kind of coordinated energy. The green room, which Richie found himself inexplicably attracted too, was screaming neon and chock full of plants. Could have been a spare bedroom. He lost track of the floorplan quickly, blown away that one person could live in an apartment with so many rooms while Richie was still sleeping in a closet. His fifth shot allowed him to think a little more excitedly about this prospect, allowed him to pick up a little knick knack off a coffee table and admire it, considering what kind of knickknack he’d put there if it was his coffee table in his blue lit living room. The kitchen was pink, which was absolutely spectacular and a wonderful place to take a sixth shot, which had Richie feeling light. 

“Light in the loafers, one might say,” Richie said to a smattering of people gathered around the island. The countertop probably wasn’t real granite, but it was solid and cool and served as a wonderful stage for the time being. Someone offered Richie a mixed drink and he was overjoyed to find that it had a little umbrella stuck in it when it made it to his hand. “I have a friend back home who always mixes that up, he thinks it means drunk,” he said, aimlessly, grinning at a girl slumped slightly over the counter next to him, smiling at him. “He’s adorable, he’s like, so sure of himself but he’s always tripping up over shit like that. He’d march around a party loudly announcing ‘I’m feeling kinda light in the loafers!’ and not get it at all when someone laughed, he’s— man.” Richie shook his head, basking in it when his current entourage laughed at his brief stiff little impression of Eddie, someone they didn’t know and never would. And that was fine, Richie was fine being the one who knew him. Proud to be, even. “He’s so tense all the fucking time you just wanna—” he put his hands out, palms down, exactly where he knew Eddie would hit him standing directly in front of him, grin easy— “like, push his little shoulders down a and get him to slouch, for once, it’s refreshing seeing him  _ light in the loafers _ now and again, you know? I miss the guy. Funniest little bastard I know.” 

“Where’d you say you were from?” someone asked. “St. Louis, right?” 

Richie squinted at him, then nodded. “Sure.” 

“You like Nelly? I’m gonna go put Nelly on. Just for you.” He clapped Richie’s shoulder and disappeared. Surely enough, Country Grammar was pumping through the apartment moments later. 

“Was that our gracious host?” Richie asked. 

The girl next to him on the counter propped up on her hands and shrugged. “Hell if I know.” She looked disdainfully into the bottom of her cup. Richie grabbed a cup for himself and a bottle of Malibu from nearby and split the remainder between the two of them, clinking the plastic rim against hers before downing it. He set his cup down, swallowed, and gave her a wink. She went up on her toes and pressed a hot sticky electric pink lipstick kiss to his cheek and he laughed, then she was gone, lost to the pink swath of the room, bleeding lavender for a moment before joining the blue living room. 

Richie was alone at the kitchen island for a moment, swimming in mostly empty liquor bottles, having lost Randy long ago and just about to hit his stride. He looked to his left, slightly down, and was oddly surprised not to find a comforting 5’8” storm cloud sulking next to him. Eddie would pretend to hate this kind of party, would be one drink in and insistent that it was gross that people were drinking out of each others’ bottles and sharing liquor, not to mention appalled at the sheer number of couples groping or kissing along the walls, the air heavy with skunky weed and sweat. He would, however, have loved the colored rooms, would have been big bright curious eyed after two shots and hanging heavily on Richie’s arm, tugging him around to get a better look at the thrilling purple bathroom, voice obnoxious the drunker he got, competing even with the big speakers placed throughout. 

He missed the weight. Physically. Richie stood dead still for a moment as a sea of people swam steadily around him, in the middle of a riptide, not catching the faces of one of them. Eddie’s cold hand parading him toward the quad was like a phantom weight on his forearm for a moment, and Richie found he had goosebumps despite the muggy heat of the apartment. He could smell oncoming snow on the November air, feel his feet tracking clumsily behind him, Eddie’s dark head bobbing, Richie intentionally keeping a few paces behind just so Eddie wouldn’t relinquish his hold on him. Richie closed his eyes for a moment, the neon pink of the room fading to black and coming back to the warm amber of Eddie’s room in his apartment, the always clean scent of his hair, the photos strung lovingly over his desk, the proximity of him. Things Richie couldn’t get back, not then. Eddie had surely moved out of that apartment, leaving the space behind, and the space between the two of them was greater than ever. 

Richie tried not to think about it, tried to press it down the best he could, but it always seemed to eke out of him when he’d had a couple drinks. Especially when he’d had entirely too many. He’d found himself on his knees in the girls’ bathroom of some random bar a few weeks back, mopping tears off his cheeks with a kindly offered perfume soaked hankie after throwing up in the handicapped stall, adopted by a few sweet drunk girls who'd noticed him alone and in distress. He was given a mint by the one tending to him in the stall. Her words felt like they absolutely had to be true, as if she was an oracle, and if she told Richie he was going to die in a car crash he’d take the bus for the rest of his life. She offered him advice on the bathroom floor after what was a pathetic and desperately yearning drabble about missing his friends, about a friend in particular. 

_ The cast in your life is going to be changing all the time, you have to be there for you first. No one is worth upending your life for, sweetheart. You’ll always have people, sometimes more or less, and sometimes just not who you’d expected. Don’t hold yourself back for a specific person, you make big moves for you, okay? The love’ll come. _

While Richie wasn’t aware of the fact, an hour later, once both of them, now attached at the hip, had properly blacked out on the back patio over a couple more drinks. He’d blabbed more about Eddie, about the boy he knew as a kid and who he was growing up to be, how he missed him most dearly out of all of them and would give anything to have him there, how every mile between them sometimes felt like a sewing needle turning his heart into a pincushion. Her own tears tracked down her face as she implored Richie to  _ go to him, run to him, you clearly love him, sometimes people are worth it, I believe in soulmates _ , although Richie didn’t remember that part.

He shook himself out of it and picked through the empty bottles for one with anything left in it, thinking idly he’d give Eddie a call and just check in on how things were going in his boring little New York State of mind. 

Boston was chock full of eastern pride, neutral colors, cold winters, Harvard types. While Richie ran with the less straight backed crowd in college, he was still shocked sometimes by California. Just the drugs at parties were astounding; Richie never left an apartment or house without having seen pills or powder change hands at least a couple times. Glass tables were always surrounded by kneeling twenty-somethings with twitchy noses, balconies reduced to clouds of weed and tobacco smoke, more pupils dilated than the lighting should have allowed for. Richie had learned how to roll a spliff his first weekend there and was pleased as punch when he rediscovered Randy outside, who offered him just that. 

“This is Steve,” Randy said, toting over a guy in a starched yellow button down. Richie was pretty sure it was the first case of long sleeves he’d seen in weeks. “His dad has like. What’s up with your dad?” 

“He works at a talent agency.” 

“See! Cool. Steve,” Randy said, clearly further gone than Richie as he ruffled poor Steve’s hair around. “Richie’s gonna be a big shot actor, right Richie?” He took the spliff back from Richie, and Richie tried not to pout. 

“I don’t know if I’ve ever actually put that idea out into the world, Randy, it looks like you’re actually having original thoughts here.” 

“I just introduce Steve to everybody I know just in case. And you’re like, tall, I dunno. You could be an actor. Funny.” 

Steve seemed a little miffed at this whole development, and Richie had to feel for him. “Must get questions about your dad all the time in this crowd, huh?” he asked, trying to make conversation. 

“You don’t know the half of it. I’ll like you better if you tell me you want nothing to do with showbusiness ever. I hear too much about it as is.” 

“Anybody ever ask about your mother?” 

“What?” 

“She’s married to a talent agent, sure, but does she, you know, ever  _ interact _ with his clients? All those young hot stallions like myself?” Steve blinked up at him. Richie winked, and Randy nearly choked on his puff. “You got a picture of her? I might have my interests about show business piqued in a minute here depending on her bra size.” 

Randy broke out laughing and Steve rolled his eyes but cracked a smile regardless. “That’s our Rich,” Randy said, slinging an arm around him, though Richie detachedly felt a little bothered by the shortening of his name. Usually he didn’t mind, but it grated on him. Randy got Steve to grab them a couple beers and Richie found himself zoning out, taking in the great span of the balcony and all its occupants. There were more plants, and while there was no colored theme outside, the lighting felt hazy and warm and dreamlike. Big heavy golden light bulbs were strung overhead like fat drops of honey. He felt a warm breeze just stir the air and let his eyes fall closed, still steady on his feet but slowly preparing to leave that behind at the bottom of this beer. It was odd, sometimes, how he could pinpoint his last remaining moments of full clarity before dipping off into properly getting smashed. 

Steeling himself and cracking his beer, Richie opened his eyes and let them focus, finding his gaze settling on a couple lingering by the railing of the balcony. Two guys, talking—

No, definitely not just talking. Richie’s blood, which already felt too hot in the July air, started to simmer, color racing into his face and up the back of his neck. He thought to look away then couldn’t. It wasn’t like watching a train wreck, but he couldn’t look away for a moment, dizzy. 

The taller of the two was slouched down a little, resting against the railing, hands almost protectively settled on the shorter one’s hips. Richie dug his nails into his palms. They were kissing slowly, easily, uncaring, the kind of thing Richie had only seen hidden in bathroom stalls or spare bedrooms, stumbled upon and accidentally broken apart. Only experienced safely behind closed doors or in dark patches of hallway. Hotel room. The shorter one smoothed his hands down the other’s chest and Richie burned, dull sense memories lighting up his skin. He watched, chest tight, as the taller guy gently slid his hands up the back of the other’s shirt and the shorter guy went up on his toes and leaned more of his weight onto him and his hands were in his hair, they were both smiling, pressing grin to grin like it was nothing, easy happy natural—

“Rich, dude, I thought you were cool,” Randy said, half under his breath, a hand on Richie’s shoulder lightly steering him away from the scene. 

“Huh?” Richie said, feeling as if he’d been doused with cool water. “Oh, fuck, was I staring?” 

“Little bit.” 

“I didn’t— I mean it’s not bec—” he floundered slightly and took a sip of his beer, embarrassed. He hadn’t meant to stare, and it wasn’t accusatory, it— “I was zoning out more than anything, trust me.” 

“You’re like, hot, do you want some water? You’re all sweaty.” 

“I’m good, I’m gonna— is there any more Jack?” Randy produced the bottle out of seemingly nowhere and Richie took a swig, handing a confused looking Steve his beer. He didn’t want it anymore. “So I’m guessing that’s Drew?”

“Nah, I dunno who that is,” Randy said, and Richie could only helplessly think  _ there’s more??  _

His gaze flickered around the people on the balcony, suddenly sure he was being stared at. Everyone on the balcony was suddenly looking at him, scanning him over, trying to get a read on him. 

_ So what’s your deal? _

The dreaded question, never asked casually enough. Randy was pretty surely straight, Richie knew that, but he eyed Steve for just a moment. Short, dark haired, a little prickly. Couldn’t tell, too soon to tell. His stomach dropped, and he threw a hand out to support himself against the sliding glass door. He heard Randy say his name and he held up a finger, took a swig of Jack, and passed the bottle back. 

“I’m gonna go rock a piss, I’ll find you guys later. I’ve got my keys on me if we get separated, I’ll make it home alright.” 

The bathroom was cramped but seemed clean. The colored lighting was actually genius, the monochrome probably hid a lot that would have usually been betrayed in the cruel light of day. Richie washed his hands slowly, eyeing himself from behind the safety of his glasses. “So what,” began his tipsy bathroom mirror pep talk. “You knew there were gonna be gay guys here, so what? Might be a good thing.” His stomach clenched up again and he winced, making eye contact with himself. “Okay, maybe not. Maybe not exploring that again— tonight.” He turned off the water and shook off his hands, reaching slowly for the (currently) purple hand towel. “You aren’t gay. And this isn’t one of those gripping-the-bathroom-sink-’I’m-not-gay’ monologues, you’re not. You like girls.” 

He kept his hands consciously away from the rim of the sink, letting them fall uselessly at his sides. And he did. Richie, fairly undeniably though he caught himself doubting it, really did like girls. While he hadn’t quite been chasing skirts in high school, mostly due to his low rank on the social totem pole, god, did he like girls. He thought, oddly, of Kay in Chicago, the silver trail her heels left on the hotel carpet and how he’d wanted to follow her, stupidly, all night. While the night had ended somewhat less than completely heterosexual, there had been that. The little jitters smoking with her outside the next day. Things he hadn’t made up. “You’re just not— you’re not straight, buddy,” Richie said, finally pressing his palms to the rim of the lovely lavender porcelain. He wished suddenly to be in the backseat of his car with Kate. To be spilling his guts, talking to the one person he knew in Willard who was even remotely like him, and maybe that’s why they’d ever gotten close in the first place. Even if they both liked girls, and between the two of them, Richie was the one who got bashful when the shirts came off at the pool party. 

Someone jiggled the doorknob and made Richie jump, startled despite the fact that he already had his pants up. “Occu- one— I’m in here!” he called, tense. 

The jiggling stopped and Richie sighed, catching sight of himself, ruffled, in the mirror, one last time. He squared his shoulders (had he gained weight? Christ. Filed away under ‘to worry about later’) and pointed at himself. “Clean up your act, young man.”

He had a chance for starting clean somewhere new. And there was no reason not to. 

A fresh wave of alcohol hit the scene around midnight with a second wave of party goers who got off work late. Richie spilled pleasantly over into drunkenness with a couple shots of vodka, provided by a pair of bartenders who’d brought some of their own product with them. He bought a couple tabs off some guy in a fun shirt off the couch and stuck them in his back pocket, more excited about the transaction itself than the actual acid, which he had no plan to take in the near future. It just felt good to shake hands and have a nice little chat with a dealer. Enigmatic, maybe. 

There was a stride Richie tended to hit only when he was in the right place. It wasn’t hard to get him dancy; he never had any problem making a fool of himself in any proximity to a radio. He loved dancing, actually, even if he was absolutely no good at it. The benefit of being at a party was that those who were usually reserved on the dance floor got to about Richie’s sober level of flamboyance, and didn’t notice when Richie topped out after getting enough alcohol in his system. 

At a certain point, it didn’t matter what song was playing, Richie was firmly in a Billy Idol state of mind. He threw himself about recklessly, all limbs and no coordination, exhilarated in a way only more music and less inhibitions could get him. Some sobering mornings he wondered if people laughed at him when he was in one of those moods, galloping through crowds of people by himself, in his own world, dancing like it was already 1999, but in the moment it was all joy. People smiled and sometimes joined in, he was swung around a couple times here and there, his hand taken, turning someone in a spin, happy to be involved. He’d been dubbed the life of the party at several events in Boston, if only for his undying enthusiasm when the right song was on. Richie prided himself in being able to get anyone on the dance floor, in making the stiffest wallflower into a jelly limbed idiot for three minutes. 

Times like those he didn’t need to know anyone. Nothing would compare to the rooftop or Stan’s living room, but Richie had the defense of bold ambiguity when he danced alone at nameless parties like this one. He couldn’t, at some point, keep track of where the fuck he was, music bleeding in and out of each colored cell in the apartment, shifting effortlessly into pink and green and yellow, red in the doorway and indigo by the couch, bodies churning effortlessly around him. Someone handed him a shot and he took it, unfazed, cheering even, someone else tossed a hat onto his head he was all too excited about. Someone else took his hand and his waist and pranced him around for a moment, his vision too blurred to make out a face, he just held on, screaming, laughing and brimming. The party thrummed under and around him, his voice not lost but not overpowering, blending easily in, falling into the folds of it. He was adopted briefly by someone else’s party mom, offered water in that spectacular pink kitchen, his screaming obnoxious Hawaiian shirt tied lovingly around his waist so he wouldn’t lose it, hat readjusted on his damp hair. He thanked her maybe fifteen times over before being thrown back into the throng, refreshed and ready for more. 

Richie didn’t stop until he collided with someone, a clumsy apology already falling out of his mouth before they hit the ground. He fumbled, helping them up, big hands wrapped stupidly around what he discovered to be a standing lamp, blessedly unharmed. Richie laughed, giving the lamp and its blue bulb a dip. “Sorry, there, miss,” he said, righting it and patting the top of it’s shade. “Don’t know how I could have overlooked a dame like you, you’re practically glowing. Did you come here alone?” 

A laugh like a silver bell rose from the pink kitchen, Richie glancing up only momentarily from the blue wash to try and find it, lost in color. 

He found himself, as if having teleported, leaning over the balcony with fascination, staring into the street below. His hands hung limply at the end of his forearms which rested on the rail, cool and grounding. The music had dimmed slightly, but his ears rang from being too close to the speakers, somehow not unpleasant. White noise in his usually busy head. His rapid breath and frantic pulse told him he needed a break, but nothing could stop him from swaying, singing where he knew the words. He barely knew the song floating out from the glass doors onto the balcony, it was something new, he’d recognized the radio station by the host: some top 40 channel. The small clutch of balcony smokers ignored him for the most part, recognizing a solo act and leaving him be. 

He steadied himself and ran a hand through his hair, having to replace his newly acquired bucket hat on his humidity-loose curls, letting out a breath into the hot July night.

A cigarette appeared in front of him, as if summoned by his silent passing thought of nicotine. It was stark white in the warm glow of the balcony lights, perched between two slender fingers, the polish adorning the nails chipped just at the edges. After looping endlessly through the rooms of the apartment all night, Richie had trouble discerning the color. The fingers, of course, had a hand, small, and a wrist, narrow, looking soft on the inside, leading up to an arm, leading up to a punch straight in the gut. 

“You look like you could use a smoke.” 

Somewhere in Richie’s skull, which had turned into nothing but a bowl for hot drunk brain soup by now, he recognized the voice. The little laugh from the kitchen. She wasn’t laughing now, but Richie felt like he could envision it, he could imagine it so easily. She must laugh often. Big black coffee eyes, dark roots that betrayed the home-bleached blonde hair, spangled freckles over her nose. 

“Uh,” Richie said, all charm and intelligence. He took the cigarette carefully, as if afraid to touch her. She might dissolve, some mirage of his whisky soaked mind. His fingers looked blocky next to hers, and her hand moved fluidly away when he took it. “You’d look right. I mean you’re right,” he said, offering all he had, last resort, a stupid smile. “I have a lighter somewh— oh, that’s drugs—” He pulled his hand out of his back pocket, watching his little foil and acid sandwich come free and flutter down toward the street below. It was a somewhat graceful descent, all silver glitter. Lighter. He produced it, and looked back to find her looking at him quizzically, smile not having left her face. He thumbed it to produce a flame. “Lighter.” 

She had a cigarette of her own between her teeth now, and Richie was captivated by her mouth, the easy grin of it. There was a little gap between her front teeth, barely there, and Richie could feel the buzzing in his ears pitch up slightly when she gently took the lighter from him. He knew their skin didn’t brush on account of the fact that he didn’t burst into flame. She lit her cigarette and waved him in closer. Hypnotized, Richie stuck his cigarette in his mouth and stooped, eyes burning from trying to watch as she cupped her hands and lit it for him. He stood back up slowly, dreamlike, still baffled as to why she was still there. He would have run minutes ago from the fumbling drunk fool on the balcony. 

“You were really going at it out there.” her voice had a careful slowness to it, and Richie realized it was very possible she was also drunk. 

He sucked in a breath, hands shaky now, trying to settle. “‘S not a party if no one’s dancing.” 

“And I’m guessing lamps count as someone to you?” 

“You saw that, huh?”

There was the laugh. Richie’s knees went to jelly, one hand thrown out quickly to the rail to steady himself. She clutched her stomach, her nose scrunching under the freckles, eyes squeezing shut, radiant. He laughed too. Maybe at himself, maybe out of the joy and surprise that she was talking to him. “Oh, I saw it.” Her voice was deeper than he’d expected, pleasantly scratchy, just on the edge of hoarse. “I’m glad you found someone to dance with, you were looking a little lonely out there.” 

“Oh,” he said, finding it difficult to talk around his smile. “I’ll dance with anybody, you don’t have to ask me twice.” He found himself gazing at her, tobacco sizzling idly, smoke seeming to come from his ears, before he shook himself out of it and extended a hand. “I’m Richie.” 

“Sandy.” 

“Sandy,” he repeated, just the feeling of it in his mouth bringing on a smile.

“You wanna dance.” 

“I should actually probably not— like take— I gotta cool it a little, I think. ‘M getting stared at.” 

“No, I can tell you wanna dance.” She backed up a little then, eyes heavy on him, just her feet shifting to the rhythm of the suddenly distant music. Richie could pick out the sweat shimmering at her temples, could see a stray eyelash on her cheek, thick with black mascara, his senses dull to everything else. She stuck her cigarette back between her teeth to lift both arms, still just swaying, gentle, slo-mo. “Yeah?” 

Richie was hardly ever the observer. He’d never wanted to sit back and watch more, he’d never wanted to be the observer like this. Richie was hands on, but all he wanted was for her to show him. His mouth hung open slightly, clumsy useless fingers dropping the cigarette when she took one of his hands. He was startled by how they fit together, how small hers was. For a moment he expected the cool press of a watch buckle against his wrist, but the thought departed quickly when Sandy tugged him. “If you wanna hang out here alone like some square, that’s fine. But you’ll know where to find me.”   
“No— I’m coming with you.” 

Sandy lead him effortlessly inside, that previous ache and lack of presence on his arm seeming to fade moment by moment. The feel of the living room had shifted, kids having coupled up for the most part and getting as close as clothes would allow them, drunk and thrumming. Dividing and colliding like particles in the icy lighting, colors and textures smoothed and pleasing. Sandy came around in front of him and took both his hands, eyes bright on him, almost challenging. Richie had some semblance of rhythm, but it wasn’t much at this point in the night, and Sandy did her best to guide him, mouthing the words with him when he got lost. She knew the song better than he did, and he was useless anyway, following her every mark, happy this time to be lead like a stray dog.

A bass beat thrummed so low Richie could feel it in his chest, recognizing the song immediately. He tipped his head back, nearly whining, heart beginning to rev up with pointless drunk excitement. “Oh, Jesus.” 

“What?” Sandy asked, squeezing his hands. “Don’t like this song?” 

“No, I like it too much, I’m about to get myself in trouble,” he breathed, rewarded with her smile. She seemed to like that response. Something mischievous glittered in her dark eyes, Richie absolutely lost in them when she reached for his waist, placing her hands just above his Hawaiian shirt, still clinging on. 

“Mind if I join you this time? I’m no floor lamp, but I can do my best.” 

_ I’m just a bachelor _

_ Looking for a partner _

Richie cracked up. Laughter came from deep in his chest, somewhere that hadn’t been stirred in far too long. The song was ridiculous, oversexed, and Richie could see the handful of couples taking it absolutely seriously around them. Sandy sang to him, enjoying the ridiculousness of it, leading the whole time. She swayed both their hips in time, and Richie set his hands up on her shoulders, captivated. 

“I thought you said you were gonna get yourself in trouble, show me trouble.” 

“I  _ am _ ,” Richie protested, although truthfully unsteady at best. 

“That’s trouble? You’re just shifting your weight, put your ass into it.” 

“I’m a white dude from Maine, this is about as trouble as trouble gets.” His voice cracked into a laugh at the end, struggling to keep up with her. 

“Bend your knees, come on.” She hitched them a hair closer and Richie thought he could feel the heat of her skin, hyper aware of everywhere they touched. She was sure and exact with her hands, guiding him at the waist until he got a hang of the rhythm, then sliding up his ribs and turning his brain effectively to chocolate pudding. “Like you’re skating backwards, there you go.” 

“You can skate backwards?” he very nearly stood still for a moment to handle his awe, but she checked him with a hip as she lifted her arms above her head and threw him back into it. 

“You can’t?” 

“I can hardly ice skate, I don’t wanna know how badly it would go if you threw wheels into the mix.”

“I forget too quickly you’re no picture of grace.”

He liked her earrings. Too drunk to care about incorporating it into conversation, he voiced that immediately. “I like your earrings.” He wanted to touch them. He reached out and did. Two big hoops, a little tarnished, glittering on and off depending on the angle. 

She was glowing, smile only brightening. “Thank you. I don’t usually find pairs.” 

“How do you mean?” 

She set one hand onto his shoulder, moving them closer to talk over the din of the room. “I found them in the back of a cab, they were linked together.” She lifted her free hand to show him a bracelet, tattered twine. “I swear to god a seagull dropped this on my towel one day on the beach.” 

They entered the second verse, and Sandy returned to singing, Richie dropping off into a brief quiet silence before joining her, grin spilling over the cheesy lyrics. 

_ Every single portion _

_ Sends chills up and down your spine _

It felt a little like floating, like being a little light in the loafers wasn’t a bad thing, like he was untouchable and strong and filled with a unique sort of grace. Movement lost to instinct as he stepped to her, Richie braved setting his hands on her waist, and her head dropped back with a laugh. Sandy was a clean strong line, arched back, legs strong and steady despite the slur in her voice. Her hair caught everywhere on him, untidy and long. 

She sang the lyrics at him and he could only laugh, mouth clumsy and lungs working dually hard between the giggles. 

_ If you’re horny _

“Do you think people actually fuck to this song?” 

_ Let’s do it _

“Are you asking because you have and you’re embarrassed about it?” 

_ Ride it _

Richie broke up laughing again, holding onto her then more for support than anything. “No, no I haven’t been so lucky to fuck to Genuwine.”

_ My pony _

“You’re missing out.” She dropped down then, swaying her hips in a way that could have really been Something, had she so clearly not been fooling around. Richie’s stomach hurt, eyes squeezed tightly as he hoisted her back up by the forearms, trying desperately to catch his breath. When she stood back up she stumbled, Richie lucky enough to catch her considering his own compromised balance. He nearly backed into another couple, who looked sincerely like they were considering fucking to Genuwine right then and there, and Sandy cracked up laughing again, almost delirious. Richie was surprised there was any oxygen left in the room with the two of them sucking it up, hyenas that they were. 

_ Come and _

“Do you wanna go for a walk?”

“What?” 

_ Jump on it _

“Oh, sorry, do you wanna go for a stumble?”

Richie beamed at her, still listing toward him unsteadily, grin unabashed and brilliant even in the colored light, and could only smile back. He found his arms trembling, thinking it was from holding her up, but the tremors didn’t stop when she took her own weight again, only spread to his hands. The bass started to drop out, pounding winding down, bleeding into some other uselessly hot and heavy beat. 

He had to comb his hair away from his face, damp with sweat, and nearly lost his hat in the process. “Yeah, I don’t think I’d mind tripping down the stairs with you if it gets me another smoke.” 

Sandy took him by a belt loop as if afraid to lose him on the way to the door. “You provide the cigarettes this time and I’ll find you something, how about that?”

It was a ring, something clearly cheap and tarnished and sitting in a reeking oil slick on the greasy LA street, and Richie thought it might be one of his most prized possessions the moment Sandy slipped it on his finger. It was clearly a woman’s ring, almost entirely too small for him, but it fit alright on his left pinkie. He was sure it was going to turn his finger green and wanted nothing more. Sandy caught sight of it not ten minutes after promising him a gift from the streets and dove for it outside a liquor store, shaking her hands clean of dirt and gasoline and offering it to him like a crow would a person it particularly liked. 

Richie was immediately endeared to her, happy following her around when she set to wandering away from the party, neither of them leading the other home. It became apparent early on that they weren’t ready to settle in, and Richie found he was relieved. Too many times had he been lead back to an apartment or dorm room in Boston, excited after meeting someone new, only to have a fairly quick encounter and be left without a phone call the next day. A friend at school had told him once he was too vulnerable to that, and if he wanted to move slow he had to be clearer about it, but he couldn’t seem to help getting caught up in the rush of something new only to realize it was almost already over. When Sandy announced she’d rather take him to a fortune teller she liked rather than hit the mattress, he couldn’t help but be refreshed by that turn of events. 

The fortune teller, apparently, did not occupy a building, but lived under an underpass, and was currently out. There was even a little cardboard sign decorated with a fun drawing of an eye in the palm of a somewhat crooked hand which announced this. The teller was out. Sandy promised to bring him back sometime, snagged him by the belt loop of his shorts, and stole him off to her next destination. 

Under the pier, there weren’t mermaids as Richie had suspected, but apparently Sandy had once found pearls 

(“No, not the ones from a clam, like a string of actual pearls from someone’s necklace, shit gets dropped down here all the time.”)

and wanted to check if there were any more to be found. Richie’s knees ached from dancing and walking all night, but he followed regardless, something in him finally satisfied by her weird under the city trek, despite the low tide dampening his sneakers. Exploring like kids, finding the underbelly and the places adults just didn’t deem clean or interesting enough. Sandy had lived in LA for a couple years, and while seemingly everyone wanted to tell Richie they knew all “the spots,” she was the first one who brought him anywhere that felt truly worthwhile. She walked him down a strip of bars, pointing out one with a shark head mounted over the doorway, gaudy plastic palm trees (as if they didn’t grow there natively) on either side of the entrance, laced with neon lights, that she worked at. There was a guitarist plucking away on the sidewalk, and Sandy dug out a few dollars to drop in the fedora he had set out and stopped to chat with him for a second. 

For the second time that night, Richie felt oddly like he was okay watching, like he didn’t have to be  _ on _ . One in the crowd, allowed to slink quietly offstage and take a break. When she headed back toward Richie, the guitarist started plucking away at an old Van Morrison song, something Richie knew his dad liked. He thought for a second to ask her to dance again in the street, but Sandy was off again, taking Richie by the hand. 

As it turned out, Sandy also knew Boris at the 7 Eleven. He was charmed to see the two of them together, spreading his broad arms and making some broad accented observations about fate that Richie didn’t quite understand, but relished in anyway. Sandy also knew the two chatty cats who hung around the gas station, and brought them old chicken wings from the bar after some of her shifts. They recognized her, bumping their heads against her ankles. 

“So that’s LA, huh?” Richie said, knees tucked to his chest, head tipped back to find stars that weren’t there, perched on top of some random car on a palm lined street. The neighborhood was quiet, more private somehow. Richie couldn’t fathom how the hell they’d gotten there and couldn’t even begin to wonder about how he was going to get home. Not that he quite wanted to. Sitting like stray cats on a rusting junker somehow felt more appropriate. 

“That’s a tour you can’t pay for, I’ll guarantee you that,” Sandy said. Richie turned to look at her and she winked. 

March was months ago. Chicago was worlds away. But Richie couldn’t bring himself to kiss her then, even if maybe he could have. Part of him was hanging onto something, something in the moment his brain wouldn’t let him reach, but he felt something new coming on, terrifying as it was. He thought back to the wise words of his drunken bathroom angel weeks ago,  _ sometimes just not who you’d expected,  _ and some of the tension in his shoulders eased. He twisted his new used ring and stretched his legs out, looking to the sky. Still nothing but haze and light pollution, but he knew the constellations were up there somewhere.

The bugs droned for them for a while, singing over their easy silence, and Richie felt Sandy’s shoulder brush his only a few electric times as she swayed idly. He didn’t want to go, but he could feel a crash coming on. His stomach was churning, signaling terrible things to come, and he really didn’t want to start a yarf fest in front of someone he’d just met. Resigning himself with one more glance to her silhouette in the dark, Richie turned and slid off the roof of the car, extending a hand up to her. 

“Can I walk you home?” 

Sandy grinned down at him again, a live wire finally still and nodded toward the strip of apartments to Richie’s back. “You already did.” She pointed to a blue building between two tan ones. “That one’s mine.” 

“Oh.” 

She slid off the car as well, landing in front of him and only stumbling slightly. “Disappointed?”

“Far from it,” he said, idly shifting between the balls of his feet, unable to keep still. 

“If you wanna stop by the bar on Friday I wouldn’t be opposed to wiping down the bar and nodding along sympathetically as you tell me your life story and all your current woes.”

“That doesn’t sound half bad, actually.” 

“My shift starts at six.” 

“I’ll bring a good tip.” 

Sandy looked him up and down, smile a little far away, before knocking a little punch into his bicep as she started toward her apartment. “Then, I’ll catch you on the flip side, Richie Tozier.” 

Richie stood there for perhaps a little too long after her door had locked and closed behind her, silently wondering what the hell he’d just gotten himself into. 

Because he’d certainly just gotten himself into something.

He nodded, once, with a kind of finality, and took a deep breath before turning to wander his way back toward home. It felt like growing pains, almost, like he was turning a new leaf and the page weight ten tons, fighting him, but he fought back. 

_ You’re allowed something new, Rich _ , he thought.  _ No sense in staying inside when the door’s wide open. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs mentioned/referenced:  
> Country Grammar - Nelly (I know it didn’t come out until 2000 I couldn’t think of anyone else from St. Louis)  
> (sort of in there, worth mentioning)   
> Dancing With Myself - Billy Idol  
> Pony - Genuwine  
> Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison
> 
> im so sorry i named his roommate randy and now theres sandy but now it has to be like this


	20. AN EXPLORATION OF SOME QUESTIONS BETTER LEFT UNASKED

**QUEENS, NEW YORK**

**SUMMER 1997**

Waking up in a cold sweat wasn’t something entirely alien to Eddie Kaspbrak. Despite all the talk of nightmares with Stanley as of late, Eddie, almost consciously oblivious, chose to believe that he just slept hot. He had enough to deal with outside of his subconscious mind to deal with. So that one was shoved promptly to the back burner. 

Eddie learned long ago the nuances of keeping Sonia oblivious and satisfied. 

He put his practices to good use over the summer of ‘97. 

Three or four days a week, he dressed in office clothes, neat tidy and pressed, ate whatever his mother considered a healthy breakfast that week, and left the apartment at 7:45 AM, supposedly on his way to a volunteer position at a small local library. He got in the car and occupied himself until around 9:50. Sometimes he bird watched in a small park; sometimes he trekked down toward the reeking river to watch the commotion at the shipyards; sometimes, if he was scheduled on a Sunday morning, he’d hang around outside the small stone church not too far from his apartment and have a coffee to the gospel music of 9 AM mass. He then got back in the car and drove to a small auto shop settled in the grey space between the innermost suburbs and the fringes of the city, shouldered his backpack, and headed for the bathroom, where he changed into a t-shirt, old sneakers, and grease stained jeans. He clocked in exactly at 10, and got to work. 

It felt odd, when he thought on it too hard, that his mother seemed fine with him helping out at the library but not making any actual money. As if he didn’t have student loans he’d eventually pay off or housing to cover come Fall. But Eddie had also learned long ago that questioning Sonia’s reasoning too deeply only opened up room for a lot of crazy on her end and a lot of paranoid on his, and sometimes his vague plan to ‘get out of there eventually, make do for now’ was the best he had. 

Once he’d scored the job, it only took him a week or so to refine the lie and perfect the routine.

Eddie’s mother’s neighborhood was an older one. Eddie had, one morning, stumbled across the elderly Mr. Dabrowski working on his car, had stopped to chat, and was surprised by the end of the conversation to be offered a position at his son’s auto repair shop. His grandson was named Vince, he was two years Eddie’s senior, and had been working there since he was around 16. He was tall, Eddie noticed immediately. His hair was a sort of dishwater blonde, pin straight, but thick, and just long enough that he could pull it back into a little tuft when he needed it out of his face (and that looking at him would have made Sonia Kaspbrak crinkle her nose in mild distaste). He also liked to listen to the scratchy radio in the garage (a 70’s rock buff) and knew the innards of practically any given engine like the back of his hand. Eddie liked him right off the bat.

Vince wasn’t the best teacher on earth, his father a little more patient but usually busy with more important manners in running the little auto shop. Eddie learned the ropes, if a little slowly at first. He hit his stride and the upswing of the learning curve without too much difficulty after a tricky first week. There was no lack of music or of Vince and his thick Manhattan accent narrating through picking apart an engine, hands blackened with brake dust and slick with grease, bent at the waist over the yawning maw of a client’s Ford. 

Eddie brought bottled water and a ham and cheese (and mustard and pickle) sandwich for lunch every day; Vince had a sub from the shop across the street and a beer from the fridge in the garage. He offered Eddie one every day without fail. Eddie allowed himself to accept the offer once a week max, not wanting to get into a habit of drinking at work or too much during the daytime. 

Admittedly, on allotted afternoons, it felt nice to sit on the curb and clink the neck of his Pabst bottle against Vince’s. 

Apparently somewhat charmed by the strange kid so unlike himself, Vince took up ribbing Eddie, testing which buttons he could and couldn’t push. Not blessed with long limbs or particularly impressive height, Eddie had to go up on his toes to reach most parts of an engine, straining the closer he moved to the windshield. This was apparently very entertaining to Vince, who quickly began fostering a bad habit (the first of many) of lifting Eddie up by the belt loops until his feet were off the ground when he caught him off guard and bent over alone in the garage. It was good natured, honestly kind of funny, but Eddie always had to suck down half his water bottle to recover from the redness in his face after such an event, telling Vince off each time without enough real conviction. 

They drove together in Vince’s restored Pontiac to any outside jobs, typically friends of the family who needed help with something or other, and Eddie rather savagely enjoyed flying around with the radio blaring, Vince’s suntanned arm hanging out the window and holding onto the roof as he sang along in the driver’s seat.

Vince, sometimes, reminded Eddie a little of Bill. This was what he chose to tell himself when he caught himself overly pleased about the two of them being left alone together in the garage or plagued with the odd inclination to follow him around unnecessarily, giving him sometimes undue attention or glances. In the early days of their friendship, since about nine or ten, Eddie was Bill’s shadow. For a long time, he’d looked up to Bill as the infallible leader, the one with the ideas and the plans, the one who always knew the right thing to do, Eddie silently longing to be the unspoken second in command, the trusted confidant. He felt, he thought, similarly about Vince. He did stop by the library at one point to pick up a couple books about auto mechanics, about some of the other odd jobs Vince had mentioned, eagerly reading up to have something to talk about with him. The fonder Vince grew of him, the more the fire was fueled, the more eager Eddie found himself to continue impressing him. He started picking up bad habits of his own to tease him back, chasing his ankles with the air hose, swapping out his wrenches while he was under a car to throw him off, pointing out an imaginary grease spot on his face only to watch him smear his face when he tried to wipe it off with dirty hands. Vince didn’t seem bothered by it in the least, in fact seemed to enjoy the break from the usual monotony of his dad’s shop.

“You’re a little shit,” Vince said once, smiling, throwing a sponge in Eddie’s direction after he’d pulled something childish to break up the boring afternoon. “I like you.”

It left Eddie grinning the rest of his shift, the whole drive home, stifled only when he finally walked back into the apartment and had to put on a neutral face to avoid being asked questions.

He’d only worried things were going too far the day Mr. Dabrowski asked the two of them to wash his car for him on a very slow afternoon, leaving them both armed with sponges and water buckets and a hose, destined for no good. They’d barely gotten halfway through when Vince blasted Eddie from behind while he was scrubbing at the back window, leaving a stripe of cold water up his back. Eddie had immediately retaliated by pitching the soapy water in the bucket at his feet at him, only to get properly drenched by the hose in return. Moments later found the two of them wrestling over the hose, jeering and aiming toward the other’s face until Mr. Dabrowski had barked at them from the office to wash the _ car, _ not  _ each other, _ effectively breaking it up for the time being. Eddie had successfully wrangled the hose out of Vince’s hands, victorious, soaked to the skin, then Vince had peeled off his shirt and Eddie completely forgot what it was they were supposed to be doing.

His hair, which had been tied back at the start of the morning, had fallen out of its tie, loose around his jaw, dripping water onto his collar bones. Eddie found himself unable to look away as Vince twisted his shirt in his hands to ring it out, summer sunshine golden on his shoulders. His jeans, heavy with the weight of the water, sat low, and Eddie finally tore his gaze away when he caught sight of the lines of muscle cut into his hips that dove into the suddenly exposed waistband of his underwear. 

It didn’t help when Vince whipped him across the ass with the wet rope of his twisted up shirt. Caught off guard having been trying to distract himself, Eddie yelped so loud that the sub shop owner had come outside to make sure no one had accidentally backed over an alley cat. The two of them had had to change into dry coveralls to keep working once the car was clean, jeans and shirts spread out on the sidewalk to dry in the afternoon sunlight, and Eddie had kept his gaze pointedly away from Vince from the rest of the day, deciding he could maybe stand to be a little more professional in his place of work. He dialed back a little on the little pranks after that, was a little quicker to bite back if Vince teased him on the clock. 

That night, oddly more guilty about the secret garage job than he’d felt all summer, he couldn’t look his mother in the eyes over dinner, went to bed early. 

They didn’t talk often about their personal lives much at work, never hung out off the clock, it was a strictly coworker relationship. That was best. It would have become a much more convoluted lie had Eddie had to make up excuses for his whereabouts outside of normal working hours. His friends didn’t live close enough to Queens to see them often. Myra didn’t come up at all at work until Eddie had requested off one weekend. Vince overheard him talking to his father had asked about what his plans over their lunch. 

“My girlfriend lives in Rochester, I’m driving up to see her.” Eddie’s voice remained perfectly even, consciously so. 

“Oh, Eddie has himself a  _ girl, _ who woulda thought?”

Eddie chewed on his usual sandwich on the curb, nodding slowly. “Yep,” not wanting to elaborate.

“Must be pretty serious if you’re driving all the way out there for her. Rochester’s a haul.”

It wasn’t  _ that _ far and it wasn’t that serious, Eddie reminded himself. They were dating. They weren’t engaged, for fucks sake. Eddie reassured himself that it didn’t have to be seriously dating, it was just  _ dating.  _ He had honestly missed her, missed spending time with her and chatting in the library and watching movies with her in the dorm lounge where they could talk through them. She seemed to like it when he talked over movies, something Julie was constantly complaining about.

Sonia was in no way happy about Eddie’s little road trip in July. The same sense of exhilaration he’d felt over Christmas dinner, the little taste of what could be considered rebellion in the Kaspbrak home, was still riding high in his mind. He found he liked calling Myra best when his mother was in her easy chair in the living room, within earshot, watching Wheel of Fortune before dinner. It brought him a strange satisfaction to notice her lower the television volume to eavesdrop. Sonia bristled when Eddie laughed on the phone, said he missed her, promised to come see her soon. 

As intimidated as he was by the prospect of meeting and staying with Myra’s parents, Eddie figured that if he could survive all the time he’d spent with his own mother, he’d make it through. That, and the fact that he’d be staying in her parents’ home, which left no room for fooling around, was comforting. He could take the summer to figure out his feelings about sex. To address the mild shutdown he’d experienced at the mere sight of the condoms in her drawer. The expectations. He didn’t quite have to confront that directly, not immediately. Not until school started back up again and there was suddenly a time and a place again for such a thing to occur.

Myra called a few days before he was set to leave, sounding upset, and Eddie, admittedly, worried she was about to call the trip off. He’d grown more and more optimistic about it as it grew closer, looking forward to the break from his mom and some time to himself on the drive. 

“What’s wrong?” 

He’d noticed a little tremble in her voice, turning away from the living room for a little privacy. Myra sighed on the line, sounding a little choked up. 

“I have something I need to tell you.” 

Uh oh. 

He swallowed thickly, suddenly afraid he was scaring her off doing something or other, and held the phone a little tighter, voice reedy. “Okay.”

“I just don’t want you to be surprised when you get up here, I haven’t been entirely honest.” 

Eddie’s mind reeled to think what that could imply. He checked over his shoulder to make sure his mom was still firmly in her chair in front of the TV, hadn’t sniffed out signs of distress and gotten up to seek them out. He lowered his voice slightly. “Okay?”

She took a deep, shuddering breath, steeling herself. “My parents are divorced. I live with my mom right now.” 

Eddie chewed on his lip, unsure of what to say to that. Certainly not on the list of things he’d been expecting. A nonissue, really. Her expectation of his response hung heavy over the line. “I— okay?” That sounded a little weak, a little insincere compared to how much Myra seemed to have fret over this whole thing. It was also his third okay in a row. “I also live with my mom,” he tried, hoping that was reassuring. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Eddie, it’s kind of embarrassing.” 

Many phone calls with Myra were a little confusing. He liked to think it was because he maybe communicated better face to face, or something. Eddie only hoped he wasn’t missing something big here. “I’m not— upset or anything, it doesn’t really matter to me what your parents get up to, Myra, if anything I’m a little relieved I’ve only gotta make a good impression on one parent this time around.” And moms he could handle. He was a little lost when it came to dads. Mr. Tozier baffled him a little bit as a child, he remembered. 

“I know, but— you know. Children of divorce and all, broken families.” She sort of trailed off there. He could imagine the loose hand gesture.

Eddie blinked, waiting for her to continue then proceeding when it felt safe. “I did tell you my dad’s dead, right?” 

“There’s no need to be morbid, but yes, you told me.” 

“That’s not— that’s not morbid, he’s just dead.” Eddie picked his teeth, knocking a shoulder against the kitchen wall below the mounted phone. “I guess I’m just saying I also didn’t grow up with a dad?” If that was what she was worried about? 

“I grew up with my dad, I just didn’t see him as much, they’re  _ divorced,  _ Eddie.” 

“So you’ve told me.” He tried not to check the clock on the wall. He thought for a moment, struggling to find the right words to alleviate her apparent worry. “My friend Bill’s parents are also divorced. He’s one of my best friends, that never bothered me.” 

“Are you just trying to make me feel better about it?” 

“Yes?” 

“So that’s not a huge red flag for you?” 

“What?” 

“They’re  _ divorced _ , Eddie.” 

It really didn’t matter how many times she said it, it wasn’t helping clarify jack shit for him. “I— Myra, please just tell me what you’re getting at. Otherwise the fact that your parents are divorced has like— absolutely no bearing on how I’m feeling about visiting you this weekend.” 

“I just don’t want you to think that because I come from a broken family—”

He winced. “Can we not use that term, please, actually? Dead dad.” 

“Right, sorry, um— I just don’t want you to think I have a bad relationship model from my childhood.” 

“Myra,” he said, patiently as he could, “is this some Upstate people thing?” She’d mentioned once that there were lots of families from old money who might seem a little strange to him, seeing as he wasn’t really from New York. It was  _ nuanced, _ there was a  _ culture. _ Supposedly. 

“Oh, maybe it is. Is it really not that big a deal to you? Do you need to call your friend in Albany to talk about it first?” 

“No, I don’t need to consult Stan, Myra, I just need you to understand that the fact that your parents are divorced is just— a fact, it doesn’t make me fear for the very state of our relationship or like— your honor. Or whatever.” 

“Okay.”

“Trust me?” 

“I trust you.” She sighed, Eddie could hear the tension leaving her voice. “It sounds like you come from a simpler place, Eddie, it must be nice.” 

He pressed his lips together, nodding, swallowing down a little bite in his tone. “Right, small town Maine is just a postcard picture, let me tell you.” There was a bitterness in his voice he couldn’t trace. Luckily, she didn’t seem to notice in the least.

“I’d love to go sometime. I’ve heard it's really beautiful in the Fall,” she said pleasantly. 

“Yeah, so what time do you want me to show up on Friday?” 

“If you could make it by seven we could go out for dinner?” 

“Sure thing.” 

“And you’ll drive safe?” 

“Yeah, my driving’s fine. Why does everyone always ask me that?” 

Sonia glared from the upstairs window as Eddie drove away Friday afternoon, and Eddie waved, beaming, hamming it up as much as possible before setting off. Still felt good, spiteful, but good. 

Initially, he’d thought the drive would be five blissful hours to let his mind go pleasantly blank, to watch the highway streak by and to listen to the radio, but the closer he got to Rochester, the more his mind reeled. 

He and Myra had been dating for a little over three months, and it had been relatively easy. He wondered if maybe it was too easy, if there was something amiss. Overthought. While he hadn’t quite understood the whole divorce thing, maybe he could have stood to be a little more compassionate about it, maybe he could stand to do a little better and understand a little more, even if Myra, more often than not, sort of baffled him. 

Maybe he just didn’t know how to be in a relationship. Didn’t yet have the hang of dating. And Myra was just doing her best to help him figure it out. That made the most sense. And they weren’t seriously dating. And he didn’t really  _ want _ to be serious, not yet. That was something you built up to, something for people who were in love, for people who envisioned a life with each other. 

Eddie typically tried not to envision life in chunks larger than maybe a month at a time, trying to envision the  _ rest _ of his life gave him a headache and the sweats. It stressed him out.

He was never much of a romantic, didn’t believe in bullshit like soulmates or fate or love at first sight, figured it was something you worked on, tended to. His mother had even told him so at some point, told him that love and relationships were difficult and took a lot of maturity and effort to upkeep. So maybe he didn’t have to be too worried, he just had to work on putting more effort toward it. Effort toward properly falling in love, which scared him, but maybe it was supposed to? 

Myra was good for him, Eddie decided, maybe thirty minutes out. She seemed to have a handle on who she was, had a good sense of direction for her life, wanted to help Eddie be better. Wasn’t, as a completely random example, dropping out of school and moving across the country without a plan. She talked him down when he needed it, challenged him when he needed it. And he  _ should _ be afraid to lose her, she could, after all, walk away any time she chose. She was a good friend besides the whole dating thing. Maybe a healthy fear of losing her was necessary to keep him on his toes, keep him a good boyfriend. 

Something like that.

Eddie pulled up to Myra’s mom’s place at ten minutes to seven. He waited in the car for a few minutes, not wanting to be overly early, taking a few slow breaths to settle sudden jitters, shaking his hands out, wrists sore from holding the wheel so tightly the whole time he drove. The house was large. Eddie wasn’t sure if this was the house Myra and her brother (he was pretty sure there was a brother) had grown up in, but it looked like it had room for a couple of parents and maybe five kids. Maybe even a dog. Sheesh. He tried not to think about the little house in Derry, the somewhat cramped townhouse in Queens. At two minutes to seven, Eddie took another deep breath, bucked up, and ventured out of the safety of his car, overnight bag slung over his shoulder. 

As assumed, there was a lot of space for just two people. Eddie was offered a bed in a guest room. Myra sat on the end of his bed and chatted with him for a while upon arrival; it was nice to catch up just a little bit, nice to have her run her fingers through his hair and try to settle some of the odd nerves he’d fretted himself into on the drive. Here she was, alive and real and still the same, still giving him these looks of adoration that made him feel a little shy, maybe in a good way. That was that butterflies thing people always talked about, cheesy as it was, he was pretty sure. 

Myra’s mother took them out for dinner, Eddie a little uncomfortable when he got a look at the prices on the menu. He felt oddly guilty, tried to order something as cheap as he could without making a big deal out of it. Myra’s mother insisted on paying, despite Eddie trying to at least take care of his own bill. His nerves made it hard to eat, a little embarrassed when her mother commented on it. 

“He eats like a little bird, Myra, you’re going to have to start cooking for him. She’s a great cook, if anyone can fatten you up a little it’s my girl.” 

Eddie slept restlessly the first night, heading to bed somewhat early under the excuse of being tired from the drive, honestly just wanting a break from the heavy gaze of Myra’s mom. She gave him a weird feeling, something he couldn’t place, but he heard her tell Myra that she liked him just as he left the room. So that was good, he guessed. 

She was nice enough, and was very generous the whole weekend, offering cookies and good home cooked meals and even a little money for the two of them to go out to the movies on Saturday afternoon. That Eddie also tried to refuse, wanting to pay for the two of them himself especially considering she’d taken care of dinner, but again, she footed the bill. Eddie bought the popcorn, insisting. 

“She does know I have a job, right?” He’d asked Myra quietly during the previews.

“Oh, yeah, but they can’t be paying you much at the library. Don’t worry about it, Eddie, she doesn’t mind, and she knows you and your mom aren’t really well off.” 

He’d wanted to insist that they weren’t not  _ not _ well off, that they held down the apartment perfectly well, Eddie had his own car, etc., but it didn’t feel like a worthy fight. Eddie simply found it difficult to focus throughout the movie, arm around Myra in the dark of the theater, not wanting so much of a kernel of the popcorn he’d bought her. At the end of the night, he wasn’t really sure entirely what the movie had been about. 

There was a little pond in their neighborhood Myra walked him down to, a little bench and a well kept white gazebo. The large houses loomed, spread out between clipped lawns green even in the July heat, and Eddie was starting to resent the crushing feeling the neighborhood was giving him, almost longing for the tight packed condos and apartments on his street. The evening was nice, cooler than the city, felt a little closer to home. The heat eased off in the evening in the summers in Maine, sweat cooling on the back of sunburnt necks turning a little chilly when the sun went down. 

They chatted idly, hand in hand, Myra resting her head on his shoulder. Eddie talked about getting his own place once they graduated, how he wouldn’t have to live at home ever again, Myra talked about the place near school she was moving into soon. Not making plans, not quite, just discussing them. Eddie was sick of feeling like a teenager, sick of being told he was an adult without being allowed to act like one, talked for a while about getting Out There. Myra seemed to be on the same page, which was comforting.

The sun hadn’t quite set by the time they’d quieted down, and Eddie felt that telltale pressure starting to settle in, air particles growing heavy between them, so he took the initiative and kissed her before she had a chance to stare at him all imploringly. It was received well. Eddie really was getting the hang of it, he thought, even if they weren’t quite making out. That he maybe just wasn’t into. He’d only really— well. 

He’d definitely done it once recently. 

Didn’t count.

Eddie kissed her a little deeper after that thought, still keeping his hands mostly to himself so as not to start anything, but eventually Myra mentioned that they should probably get back. They could watch television in the living room or something. 

His nerves acted up again when she quietly offered to sneak into his room for the night. Said that her mother wouldn’t really mind, that she just couldn’t in good faith let a boy her daughter had only been dating a few months shack up in her room, that she understood they were adults. It didn’t have to be some sneaky teenager thing. Eddie agreed, although worried that his one excuse and defense mechanism had suddenly been dismantled. 

He got ready for bed in the guest bathroom, changed into shorts and a soft cotton t-shirt, and Myra snuck in once he was already tucked into bed, her hair smelling clean. They kissed a little, but that was all, and Eddie finally found himself relaxing when she settled her head on his chest and draped over him. It was nice, actually, the weight of her next to him and the warmth of her not all that bad with the fan on overhead, even under the nice weighty blankets. 

“What have you really been up to this summer?” she asked, unprompted, her small hand settled comfortably over his sternum, a finger tracing it up and down. 

Feeling caught for a moment, Eddie froze, the hand rubbing her shoulder slowing to a stop. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean— you can’t just be working at the library. You’d go crazy.” 

She didn’t say it in a way that was particularly accusatory. Not like she knew something and was trying to make him admit it so she could catch him red handed. 

_ Not like your mom would. _

So Eddie told her about the garage. Told her about his mom’s neighbor, about some of the handyman work, an abridged version of Vince. He  _ could _ tell her, venturing to trust her with it. Myra listened intently, stopping him only to ask why he was so secretive about it. It seemed like a pretty normal job. When he was quiet, unsure how to start, her voice softened, shifting a little closer almost as if to hold him. 

“Is it your mom?”

When he released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, it stirred her hair. If there was any time to invest a little more into this, to be conscious about working on it, it was now. Disclosing maybe a little more. Not too much. “Yeah.” 

“You two—” Myra paused, seemingly unsure. She hadn’t met Sonia. It was something Eddie was, in fact, trying to avoid as long as possible. He was fine with her resenting his girlfriend as a concept, but he didn’t want to subject Myra to her spite directly. It in fact might be worse if Sonia put on a happy face for it, was cloyingly sweet to her, then proceeded to berate Eddie with everything she found wrong with her and their relationship the moment Myra left and closed the door behind her. “You two have a sort of unique relationship, don’t you?”

“That’s— one way to put it.” Anxiety coiled in Eddie’s gut. This wasn’t the conversation he’d wanted to have. Ever, maybe. Myra didn’t need to know everything. Having divorced parents was one thing, but the kind of issues that plagued his relationship with his mother? Talk about a red flag. That should, reasonably, send any even mildly observant girl running.

“Is it because of your dad?” Her voice was pillow soft, heavy pillow talk. 

Another thing Eddie didn’t like to talk about, but there it was. “Not, no, I mean not— directly, no.” She waited so patiently for him to elaborate, her silence only coaxing it out of him, dainty fingers moving up to play quietly with the collar of his cotton t-shirt. He felt like he’d started on something he couldn’t back up from, had opened a chapter of his life he hadn’t yet planned on sharing. “Um. I mean it was cancer, I didn’t know him.”

“How old were you?” 

“Four or five.” Eddie twisted the silky spaghetti strap of her tank top around a finger idly. The constriction was comforting somehow, the tip of his finger slowly turning white. “So it’s not like I really knew him. People always want me to be so sad about it, but it’s like— like if you had this distant uncle you never really knew? Which kinda sounds sad anyway, but I didn’t really— my mom and I were fine, I turned out fine.” He hoped. 

“Is it like a pressure thing? Like she wants you to turn out like him?” 

Eddie’d never considered that, but it didn’t sound right either. “No, not really. That’s more my grandma, I think she wants me to be his replacement or something.” He expected a response here, but again, didn’t get one. Myra was being patient with him. She wanted to listen, he realized, even if he was still semi-reluctant to talk. “I think it was more because he went kind of suddenly, like apparently he was really healthy and just got sick and then was just gone, it wasn’t one of those things where he was wasting away for years. I don’t even remember him being sick, I don’t know if it’s because it happened so fast or because my mom tried to keep me from seeing it.”

“So she’s protective.” 

It wasn’t a question. A restatement, an understanding. Eddie gulped, sinking a little further into the pillow. “She’s— yeah. It’s not— it’s not like bad, I’m not like, damagingly sheltered, I don’t want you to think this is some weird, like, Psycho thing—” 

“Julie said you were freaked out when she pointed out that you kinda looked like him,” Myra said, a smile in her tone. “The guy in Psycho.” 

“Yeah, because I probably have too much time alone with my mother, sure, not by choice, but I’m not gonna like— stuff her and wear her skin or whatever he does.” He’d never finished the movie. Wasn’t a fan, left Julie’s scary movie night early that time. “She’s just kind of overbearing and she has a very special talent for guilting me about— everything.” Once he started talking, it was hard to stop. Like the pages of a very private journal were flipping one by one on their own volition. He took a breath just to interrupt himself, only to carry on. “It’s not like she’s a bad mom, she’s a great mom, and I’ve always been her first priority, it’s all like— out of love, kinda. Maybe just a little too much love, I don’t know. She was always so paranoid—”

About him getting sick. He’d drawn that connection before, but it always just. Felt bad. Sour taste on the back of his tongue. Camphor water. But that he  _ really _ didn’t want to get into, all the pills and potions he didn’t need to take and allergies he didn’t really have. Sneaking gluten one day and peanut butter another and realizing he was absolutely fine each time, that he’d been lied to so many times. Mr. Keene. 

Eddie cleared his throat, shaking the thought off. “—about losing me, I think. And she’s just getting older, she’s lonely.” 

“So she’s sad you’re growing up.” 

“Yeah, it’s like she didn’t plan for it or something, like she thought I was gonna stay a kid forever.” He unwrapped his finger, feeling the circulation slowly return. “It’s always just been the two of us.” 

When Eddie thought about his mother, he wanted to run. When he thought about Derry, he wanted to run. But when he thought about his friends lined up on their bicycles, plowing through mud and bamboo in the Barrens, sprawling all over each other like hot cats in a patch of shade in the underground clubhouse, clambering over each other and wrestling for extra time in the hammock, he kind of wished Peter Pan was real and could have just stolen them away to Neverland that summer. So they didn’t have to grow up and go to college and hang on to each other by nothing but telephone chords and memories. 

Myra’s fingers, even if accidentally, brushed over the junction of Eddie’s neck and shoulder, and he jumped. She sucked in a clipped little breath, surprised, and Eddie whispered a hoarse apology. Myra sat up halfway, her hair falling silver over one shoulder in the dim light from the big windows. Eddie, unsure really of what had just transpired, drew his hands in a little closer to his chest as she tucked a lock behind her ear. He wished she’d lay back down, anxiety suddenly clattering around his chest like a marble in a metal bowl, loud.

“You do that sometimes,” she said, the tone in her voice having taken on a different quality. Something unknown that kind of scared Eddie. 

His heart started to rev up, half frantic. “Do what?” 

“You like— recoil. When I touch you, sometimes.” 

Wide eyed, he stared at her in the dark, her features softened and blurred in the dimness. Eddie, without anything to say to that, chest suddenly tight with something akin to guilt, started to sit up a little, then sank back down into the sheets on his side, opening up to her slightly, hoping to coax her back into lying down. It was stressing him out, scaring him, the way she suddenly became withdrawn, his focus entirely on bringing her back close to him, as if he’d done something wrong. 

“Why is that?” 

“I—” still at a loss, Eddie lifted an arm slightly. Myra merely looked at him. He felt like a snail without a shell, goopy and exposed, especially after having spilled his guts to her about his parents. He never did that. Good to get off his chest, maybe, but with her sitting up and staring at him like that it felt like he’d been laid out bare and abandoned. He hated the sound of his voice when he spoke up, breezy and almost needy, unlike himself. “Myra, please.” 

The awful feeling crawling up his throat resolved the moment she settled back down, tucking herself back into his arms, forehead close to his. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?” 

His heart rate hadn’t slowed. “I know,” he said, getting an arm settled so he could comb through her hair. She’d showered earlier, it was cool and damp, floral smelling. 

“Something’s bothering you.” 

“Something’s always bothering me, Myra,” he said, trying to play it off, forcing a breathy laugh. “I’m always fucking wound up, you should know that by now.”

Myra, again, offered him silence, a space to admit something he probably should but maybe couldn’t get out, something he didn’t have words for. His heart was the loudest thing in the room, pounding in the pads of his fingers where he lightly laid a hand on her waist. 

Suddenly her hands were at his temples, pushing his hair back in a way that made his spine almost instinctively relax. There was so much sheer comfort in the gesture that it forced him down a notch, surprised, eyes blinking wide open. 

“Eddie, it’s okay.”

He could have melted. He didn’t know why, but when she adjusted to wrap her arms around him, exactly enough pressure around his middle, it drove his pulse down to normal. She tipped her head against his sternum and it was suddenly fine. He’d been feeling squirrely and frantic since the moment they’d started talking, and just now did he finally start to ease off the gas. “Oh,” he said again, almost sighed. 

“Do you not wanna talk about it anymore right now?” 

His eyes started to flutter a little, closing again. Softer. He tipped his face forward, nose buried in the part of her hair. Breathed in. Floral shampoo. It felt even better when he slowly laced his arms around her back, hugging her closer. “Can we maybe shelve it for later? Please.”

“Of course.”

He sighed again, the tension, for the time being having completely left him. He shifted his shoulders, shimmying up a little more so they’d fit better together, relieved when she inched even a little closer. “Okay.” Then, when she didn’t say anything to that, quietly, “sorry.” 

“Don’t be.” She adjusted her head, now sharing space on his pillow, her breath barely there against the hollow of his throat. “I don’t want you to feel pressured, Eddie. Don’t stress yourself out over nothing.” 

_ Was all that nothing?  _

Still aware of his steady heartbeat, Eddie willed himself to be still, letting silence drape around them. He listened to the sound of Myra’s breathing, hearing it slow, able to feel the rise and collapse of her rib cage in his arms. It was more soothing than he would have thought, and Eddie found himself dozing, voice drained and scratchy. “You gonna go to sleep now?” 

“Mhm.”

“Okay.” Almost as if exhausted from the conversation, Eddie felt his brain swim with the first telltale signs of sleep. “Night.” 

Myra hummed, in mere acknowledgement, and Eddie felt it reverberate through his rib cage. 

It was much more comfortable sleeping with her in a bigger bed rather than her twin at school. Eddie, surprising himself if he’d been any more conscious, found himself shortly drifting off to sleep, placidly content. It felt like there should have been a  _ for now _ there, but he couldn’t be bothered with it, wanting to leave it at just  _ content.  _

The drive back the next day was much more of a relief than had been the way there. Eddie had settled himself down, had made it through the weekend, had successfully visited his girlfriend to find that things were, for the most part going fine between them. They’d  _ talked _ , even, which, while not new, felt different. Eddie wasn’t very fond of this vulnerability shit, a little intimidated in the morning with how easily she’d gotten him to talk about things he never really talked about with anyone who didn’t already know his situation, but again, he tried to reassure himself that it wasn’t a bad thing. Myra wasn’t half as upset at his departure as she’d been when they left for the summer, full of optimism, knowing she’d see him again soon when she moved into her new apartment for school. He shook her mom’s hand and she hugged him, too, apparently having left a good impression, much to his relief. Despite the odd feelings. He didn’t even mind kissing Myra before he went, happily taking her by the waist and promising he’d call when he got home. 

He’d drive safe.

And he did, at least by his definition. 

Eddie returned home, gave a clean report to his overly curious mother, went to bed, and dreamt again of Richie. 

For all the work he’d done on consciously controlling his thoughts, his subconscious seemed to think it funny to throw him for a loop. 

It started out hazy, images blurred and runny like any good passing dream, maybe set back in his old apartment. Greasy pizza and coffee mug wine, the weight of someone else in his bed, a flash of his straight white teeth and sideways grin. Nothing bad, nothing Eddie had to jerk himself awake and out of, tame, soft, almost. 

The sound of rain hitting pavement in the background, slowly getting louder, the perspective shifting again. 

A gas station, one Eddie didn’t recognize, Richie’s familiar beat up sneakers on asphalt, the image sharpening. Backing up slowly, then turning. He was running, darting through the rain. He’d never been the fastest runner, but Eddie realized quickly that Richie was speeding up, hitting full tilt, taking a sharp corner and nearly losing his balance. Frantic, fleeing. The scent of coal dust hung thick in the air despite the overpowering scent of rain, Eddie watching helplessly in his mind’s eye as Richie pelted down the street. He was being chased, he was sure of it, but Eddie couldn’t see by  _ what _ . For a heart wrenching moment he thought maybe  _ he _ was the one chasing him, that Richie was running from Eddie, breath sharp and terror bright in his eyes, but another shape shifted into near focus as Richie hit a chain link fence and started to climb, the Thing nipping at his heels. Eddie realized he wasn’t even present in the dream, had no voice to call out with, as if he was watching a movie and was separated by the thick staticy screen. 

He woke with a start, a siren screaming down the street and lighting up his room redpurpleblue for only a moment before leaving him in darkness again, pulse like a scared rabbit’s. 

He threw his covers back and got up to shake himself off, pacing his room a few times to calm himself down, before returning shakily to bed. Unable to sleep. 

People had bad dreams about people they missed all the time. But Eddie couldn’t shake the feeling that there were hints that something was wrong. He remembered the slash at the hem of Richie’s jacket in the elevator in Chicago. 

_ “I dunno, I probably caught it hopping some fence.” _

Eddie suddenly felt sick.

He should have visited Stan on his way back from Rochester, should have maybe talked about it more. About the dreams, the weird nightmares, the things Eddie couldn’t help but feel he was forgetting. 

He didn’t know what was stopping him. 

He went back to work on Tuesday, changing quickly out of his liar’s uniform and into work clothes, relieved to drop back into routine. Vince asked a few too many questions about his weekend and Eddie eventually had to tell him that no, he did not get laid, they weren’t really there yet, thanks for asking, drop the subject. He took the offered beer at lunch anyway, not having the heart to stay prickly all afternoon. 

Richie wouldn’t leave him alone at night. Sometimes it was those fleeting, hazy images, snippets of a whole picture with parts obscured, the smell of his soap, the weight of his hand on the back of Eddie’s neck, almost haunting him. Sometimes a flicker of a memory, his nerdy, smart aleck voice when they were kids, pushing up too-big glasses, pouring over his beloved Superman notebook at the lunch table teaching Eddie German lyrics he had no clue how to actually spell. Sometimes the back of his dark head retreating into grey urban streets in the rain, running, trying desperately to hide from something Eddie could never get a clear picture of. 

Work was a good retreat, it felt good to get his hands dirty and work on something he enjoyed. His competence with car maintenance was something he felt nothing but good about, and fuck, was it nice to have simple positive feelings about something. 

He fell back into it without much difficulty. Mr. Dabrowski payed him weekly in cash, which he hid in a quickly fattening envelope which served as a savings account in the bottom drawer of his nightstand. Eddie was more than pleased to have watched it grow over the summer, not having to spend much, having not really done much but work and worry all summer long. At least he could profit from one of those things. 

Vince got a new radio one week, replacing the ancient thing that sat outside the office with a brighter, clearer sound. Eddie came in, as usual, to find Vince singing along to his preferred 70’s station, before giving him the rundown on what they’d be working on for the day, and they got down to it.

It was a little before noon when Eddie found himself tangled up in the lyrics of a semi-familiar song, latching onto it as he worked and getting distracted. 

_ Got on board a westbound 747 _

_ Didn't think before deciding what to do _

_ Oh, that talk of opportunities, TV breaks and movies _

_ Rang true, sure rang true _

_ Seems it never rains in southern California _

_ Seems I've often heard that kind of talk before _

_ It never rains in California _

_ But— _

“ _ Ffuck _ , ow.” Eddie slid out from under the car and promptly knocked his forehead on the frame, cradling his forehead in a dirty palm.  _ “Christ.”  _

“Getting too excited under there?” Vince asked from next to him, crouching at the back wheel, finger-tightening lug nuts. 

Eddie held up a hand, straining to listen to the crooning of the radio. 

_ It pours, man, it pours _

He shook his head, trying to shake the feeling. “Just— the song. I have a friend who lives out in California, I—” have dreamt about him extensively lately “—was just thinking about him when this came on.” 

Vince stared down at him for a moment, and Eddie could pick out a glimmer of sweat on his upper lip, shaded slightly by the soft hair there. “Welp, I hope the song itself doesn’t remind you of him. Poor sucker.” 

Eddie slid his board out further and sat up, setting his hands on the cool garage floor so as not to roll away on accident. “What do you mean?”

“It’s about moving out there to be a movie star or something and not making it, listen to the lyrics.” Vince paused himself, giving them both a moment to tune in, the cicadas outside white noise in the background. 

_ —I’m out of bread _

_ I'm underloved, I'm underfed _

_ I wanna go home _

_ It never rains in California _

Eddie listened, stomach tightening. He watched Vince absentmindedly, the dry skin around his nails black with brake dust. “But it says right there it never rains, it’s like— positive.” 

“That’s the gag. The refrain says it  _ pours _ , like it doesn’t just rain, it’s a downfall all the time. He’s saying moving out there sucks, it’s all about regret and shit.” 

Vince sang along to the last verse, Eddie’s eyebrows only drawing tighter over concerned wide eyes, something stirring worriedly in his chest. No news, so the mantra Eddie had grown to comfort himself with went, was good news, and there had been not a peep out of Richie in a while. But maybe, if Albert Hammond had anything to say about it, even some news was false news. 

“Aw, c’mon, buckaroo,” Vince said, not helping all the fluttering going on between Eddie’s ribcage.  _ Buckaroo _ was his regretfully recently acquired nickname which he had, to say the least, extremely conflicting feelings about. “It’s just a song.”

“What time is it?” Eddie said mindlessly, standing and brushing his hands off on his corduroys. The sweat slicked down his back immediately cooled him in the breeze of the fans at the back of the garage, hands on his hips as he looked toward the office. “Do you think your dad would mind if I headed home a little early?”

“Catching a flight to Cali?”

Eddie stood there for a moment, doing math in his head, counting backwards and swearing under his breath. Wouldn’t even be noon there by the time he got home. Richie slept in. “Fuck, never mind.” 

“You wanna go for lunch?” 

He puffed out a breath through pursed lips. “Yeah, might as well.” 

“I’ll grab you a beer.” Vince stood up, wiping his hands on his shirt and leaving grease stains, throwing a wink in Eddie’s direction. “It’s Friday, you haven’t had your vice of the week yet.” 

The clap of his hand on Eddie’s shoulder as he passed was electric, Eddie jumping as if shocked with static. 

They got a lot of work done in the afternoon, overhauling a difficult repair job, and Eddie was exhausted by the time he finally arrived home. He desperately needed a proper shower, but couldn’t bring himself to do anything, a tangle in his chest and a missing circuit in his brain allowing for no other thoughts, cyclical. 

_ Just call him. He’d probably like to hear from you. He called you last time, you were the first one he told.  _

Eddie paced the kitchen several times, the crumpled little notecard usually kept in his wallet in his clammy fingers, energy rolling off him despite the muscles in his arms and back groaning at him to take a breather, to relax. 

Sonia was out. He’d known she’d be out when he got home, took the risk of driving home without changing first to give himself more time. There was no promise for how long she’d be out, and this was not a performative phone call. This one he actually wanted to be private. He had to buck up and do it before he either lost his nerve or he was walked in on. 

He breathed, settled, paced back to the phone, stared at it for several seconds, considered his savings and the fact that he almost definitely had enough for a plane ticket saved up, shot that thought down before he could complete it, took a deep breath, and dialed. 

_ 2-1-3. New area code. _

His heart was in his throat as it rang. Bill had apparently been talking to Richie recently and reported that he had a job, which was good, Eddie was glad, but Eddie had no idea what kind of hours he worked, looked worriedly at the clock and did a little mental math to figure out the time difference (fuck time zones, really, he felt enough pressure in calling him without having to do math beforehand). It rang. It rang. The line beeped and went dead. Clicked, hung up. 

Eddie pulled the phone away from his ear, nerves pinging, and glared at it. He didn’t have an answering machine? Who the fuck didn’t have an answering machine? Do they not have answering machines in California? He hung up the phone on the latch and sat down stiffly at the kitchen table, breath harsh through his nose. He felt furious for no reason, angry enough for one leg to bob frantically. He could just try again tomorrow, could call Bill and make sure he had his new number written down right. Could do any number of things but sit at the kitchen table, fuming, upset like a toddler who didn’t get his way. 

But he wanted to talk to him  _ now. _ He had worked up a certain amount of nerve and was afraid to lose it. Richie occupied a very difficult space in Eddie’s mind, and it was very easy for things to go awry when he thought about him too often. 

He yelped when the phone rang, jumping clean out of his skin. Clutching his chest, Eddie took precious seconds to settle before he darted out of his chair and snatched the phone off the hook, holding it tightly with both hands. 

“Hello?” 

“Hi,” came Richie’s voice, real, carried to Eddie’s kitchen over thousands of miles, oddly almost timid. “I uh, I just got a call from this number—” 

“Richie,” Eddie said, voice flooded with relief. It was strange, for half a second, to be addressed as a stranger, to hear Richie answer the phone unrehearsed, to have a weird second of anonymity. “It’s Eddie.” 

He paused for a half second long enough for Eddie’s nerves to surge. “Eddie?” He shifted the phone around, the crackling almost hurting Eddie’s straining ears. “Eddie who?” 

The whole room went cold. It was as if all the warmth and oxygen in the tiny kitchen had suddenly been sucked out the window, leaving Eddie in a vacuum, alone with the phone. He made a choked sort of sound, fear crashing down around him, hands trembling on the phone. He rested his hip against the counter for support, dread and devastation creeping up his spine and clawing at his brain. “I—R—”

Then Richie laughed, high and hyena-like, and the world blossomed back into color. “Oh, come on, dude, you think I could ever actually forget you?” 

“Don’t fucking  _ scare _ me like that,” Eddie hissed, finding his voice, relief shocking his system like a diver who resurfaced too fast. “God, you slap happy little bastard, why did I even bother calling you?” 

“Why  _ did _ you bother calling me? Life got you down? Need the jester to tell you a little joke and make you smile?” He tripped over his words a little, talking too fast, said  _ jester _ like  _ gesture _ . 

“Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment,” Eddie grumbled, and Richie laughed again. A smile broke onto Eddie’s face, stupid and dazed. “I’ve been getting all my information from Bill second hand, how have you been?”

“My god, how  _ have _ I been,” Richie mused. Eddie felt a monologue coming on, but made no move to stop it. He was still in awe of hearing him, the fact that even over the past couple months his voice hadn’t changed at all, mannerisms consistent. LA hadn’t affected him yet. “Well— oh!”

Eddie blinked, settled himself a little easier against the counter. “What?” 

“I found something the other day.” The sound dissolved into crinkling, apparent rummaging, over a faint  _ where it is _ on the other line. Eddie brought his thumb to his mouth, gnawing idly on the nail, waiting. Richie hummed a little to himself, either making noise to fill the silence or simply unaware of it, old habit, then the rummaging stopped. “Here we go, I knew I brought it out here the other day,” he said. “A certain ‘Trashmouth Jam Sesh’. Creative name, I like it, I like it.” 

Eddies heart sped up so quickly he clutched at his chest and tugged at the fabric of his shirt as he heard the clatter of Richie turning the tape over in his hands. Eddie remembered handing it over, eyes misty and pointedly on Richie’s clumsy teenage hands, not wanting to betray the fact that he’d been choked up about it. He could picture him now, the cassette so much smaller in his palm, close clipped square nails still the same. 

“1990, from Eddie,” he read. There was fondness there that maybe only Eddie would have been able to pick out, buried in the teasing, almost patronizing tone. Richie exposing his soft underbelly only under the guise of a joke. 

“Yeah,” Eddie sighed.  _ He brought it with him. He still has it. Jesus Christ, I didn’t know I was in for this sucker punch today, out of everything else.  _

“Do you want me to read you the track list? This is adorable, I can’t believe how dorky we were.” 

“We still  _ are _ dorky, who the hell are you kidding?” 

“Dancing With Myself, Billy Idol. Look, you even wrote the artist with every track, were you trying to impress me?” 

“Hardly.” Eddie winced, realizing the thumb he’d been chewing on was dirty, grease he hadn’t bothered to scrub out against the side of the nail. 

“You Can Call Me Al, Paul Simon. Heroes, David Bowie. Everybody Wants To Rule The World, Tears for Fears. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen, good one.” Richie paused for a moment, and Eddie consciously released the hold his teeth had on his lower lip. “Aw.”

Eddie could hear blood pounding in his ears. “What?” 

He swallowed. Richie’s voice softened considerably, deep in his chest, lost in thought. “You’re My Best Friend. Queen.” 

Eddie felt distinctly for a moment like he needed to sit down. He consciously loosened his vice grip on the phone, heart beating bruises against the back of his tongue. Richie hesitated again, waiting for him to say something, but Eddie dared not speak, afraid his voice would crack. 

Thankfully, voice returning to normal, Richie continued. “Then you’ve got fucking  _ Sharp Dressed Man by ZZ Top _ and something by John Fogarty, for some reason.” 

“I thought you liked John Fogarty back then.” He tried not to sound defensive, trying to avoid the ZZ Top thing, cheeks pink. 

“I think I sort of had a Creedence Clearwater Revival phase because my dad liked them and I was very into emulating Wentworth for like six months.” 

“Oh.”

“And about our friend Mr. Top?” 

“Oh my god, Rich,” Eddie sighed, smiling and glad he couldn’t see it. “That was because you wouldn’t stop singing that song all through the second half of seventh fucking grade, not because I thought you were some ladykiller who needed an anthem, trust me.”

“You sure?” 

“ _ You _ liked the song, it was a mixtape for  _ you _ , dickwad.” Eddie carefully did not mention how long he’d debated putting on ‘Don't You Forget About Me’ as the last track instead of the John Fogarty song, but he’d decided it was perhaps a little too straightforward. 

“You’re a real gem, Eds.” 

“What?” he sounded a little hoarse, cleared his throat. 

“I’m trying not to wax all sentimental here, buddy, but I’ve been wanting to run out to the record shop around here all week to try and find a decent cassette player for this, it just— means a lot. I’m glad you made this.” 

Eddie’s foot bobbed idly, almost nervously. He ran his nails over the texture of his corduroys. “I can’t believe you still have it.” 

“Are you kidding me? I was worried I was gonna break it somehow with how much I listened to it in high school. I fucking took this everywhere.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, fuck, I missed you so much– all you guys, and I had this thing stuck in my ears all the time because it was the only thing that made me sure you guys ever even existed in the first place. I don’t think I’ve really actually listened to it since I went to college, but I always had it with me.” 

Eddie’s chest felt full in a good way.  _ Happy,  _ he thought. _ Idiot.  _ “You’re gonna come visit sometime, right?” he almost regretted it, the question flying out before he had a chance to stop it. He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, closing his eyes. 

“Aw baby you miss me  _ bad, _ huh?” 

His temperature ticked up a few degrees. “Fucking shove it, don’t act like you didn’t get all sappy about missing us a second ago. About missing me, apparently, then trying to cover it up.” 

“Lay me bare and flog me, why don’t you?” 

“Christ, why do you say the things you say in the way you say them?” 

“My mom said I was a wordsmith from a young age.” 

“What was your first word, then, Mr. Wordsmith?” 

Richie thought for a moment. Eddie bit his lip, waiting on it, trying to prepare himself for whatever Richie would come up with. And Richie took his sweet time, making Eddie believe for a split second he might even say something genuinely funny or intelligent— 

“Taint.”

“Fuck.” Eddie snickered, then Richie snickered, and as if waiting for permission, Eddie cracked up. “That’s so fucking stupid— you’re not even actually funny, you’re just blessed with good timing, fuck you.” 

“Fuck _ you.”  _

“Fuck you bent over a guard rail on the highway with a—”

“Such colorful _ language, _ Mr. Kaspbrak, my god, is your mother not at home supervising her son currently?”

“She’s getting her hair done, I think—” 

“Give her my love and  _ please _ send pictures, my spank bank has been painfully dry recently. All the hot, tan, scantily clad girls all over the beach just don’t do it for me like the pale, voluptuous charms of Sonia does.” 

He wanted to be pissed off so badly, but he’d wanted to hear from him for so long that Eddie just laughed, trying to choke it down and hide it, but Richie saw right through him. 

“He laughs! I win! I did it, where’s my prize?” 

“You’re a fucking pervert, it’s not funny, I was hoping maybe you’d grow up a little when you moved away, clearly you’re still the same stupid jackass. Go to hell.” 

“God, please keep talking to me like that, maybe I can get off tonight.” 

_ “Stop,”  _ Eddie barked, wrapping an arm around his ribs and trying desperately not to laugh again. Failing tragically. 

He didn’t know anyone like Richie Tozier. And he never would, he’d never meet anyone like him either. He was one of a kind, grating and loud mouthed and immature and irritating as he was, he was something unique in the universe. Eddie didn’t want a replacement, either, there was no one to take his place. Maybe that’s why he’d fallen all over himself upset when he left, he’d been in the process of realizing that if he ever lost Richie, he’d lose something he could truly never get back.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, strange and unprompted, thoughts getting away from himself and forcing something unplanned out of his mind. He’d wandered into Dangerous Richie Territory in his brain, fallen into a pit, and he’d had to say it. Maybe it was all that vulnerability this weekend getting to him, leaking into other areas of his life, forcing things out that had no reason to be discussed. 

“For why,” Richie asked, easily.

“For—“ Eddies breath shook terribly when he sighed, trying desperately to steady himself, finding himself somewhat unable. His voice was scratchy and sore in his throat. “Um. Never mind, we’re cool.” 

Richie’s brief silence was pressing. When his voice returned, it was painfully soft. “You sure?” 

“Yeah.” He hated the sudden onset of tension, the ease of the phone call dissolving in one fell swoop.

“Okay, then we’re cool. No worries, amigo.” 

“S— yeah, sure.” Eddie breathed, having not realized he was holding it. “Sorry.” He shouldn’t have brought it up, Christ, not here, not now, not when he’d finally made contact with him and it was going well and god, he missed him so much it hurt, it actually hurt. 

“Hey, Earth to Eds, you’re drifting away, come back.” 

“What?” Eddie blinked, pressing a cool palm to his suddenly sweaty forehead. “Shit, sorry, yeah, I was spiraling for a second there.” 

“You’re my best friend, man.” 

It struck him directly in the sternum. Shook his bones. Knocked all the words on the tip of his tongue tumbling to the floor. “Mm.” Eddie balled his fist and pressed it against his mouth, overwhelmed for a moment. He felt as if the floor was turning rapidly side to side, pitching him around despite standing still as he could. He held the phone away from himself for a second, heart in his toes, and breathed, not wanting to pant into the line. “You too. I mean it.” 

“Yeah, you put it onto my cute little goodbye soundtrack, I know.” 

Words unsaid burned like bile on the back of Eddie’s tongue, but he smiled. 

_ Are you gonna cry? Do not cry, Jesus Christ. Get a grip.  _

“You sound good, are you doing good?” 

“Really good, man, yeah. It’s great out here, I mean fuck, I can  _ walk  _ to the beach.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, one of my roommates told me he was gonna teach me to surf but decided I was too awkward for it on the first attempt, so I guess I’m stuck sunbathing for the time being.” 

“Wow, yeah,” Eddie said, finding himself leaning all his weight against the kitchen wall, something like relief slowly bleeding into his veins, a morphine drip. 

“You should really come out here sometime, man, you’d hate it.” 

“Why the fuck would you say it like that?”

“Because I know you love to complain and I think it would be funny to watch you get bowled over by a skateboarder because you're too distracted by all the cool cars.” 

“There’s cool cars?” 

Richie laughed. Eddie felt like a reformed alcoholic having his first taste of bourbon in ten years. “You’re so predictable, my god. Never change.” 

“Don’t— fucking patronize me like that, I work at a garage right now, actually. Auto shop. I have a right to fucking— get really into cars if I so please. Thanks.” 

“Wow that is so sexy, I cannot believe I’m missing out on that.” 

It was Eddie’s turn to laugh. It hurt a little, for all the strain he’d been putting on his lungs trying not to hyperventilate earlier, but it felt good. He didn’t even mind the heat rising in his face, stirred on by Richie’s stupid nasally drawl. 

“Do you like jack up cars all shirtless and sweaty and wipe your greasy hands on your abs and shit?” 

“You’re projecting, stop.” 

“No, I’m visualizing.”

“Stop visualizing, I don’t have abs. And no, for fucks sake, it isn’t a porno, everybody’s appropriately clothed.”  For the most part. Eddie very carefully avoided allowing the car washing incident to come to mind. 

“See, but that’s not as fun. It’s like Baywatch, but in New York with cars. Am I speaking your language yet?” 

Eddie’s ears burned. _ “Anyway _ , Rich, what have  _ you _ been up to?” 

“Regular Baywatch. Everyone runs in slow-mo on the beach and they're all toned and tan, it’s wonderful.” 

“So you stick out like an eyesore, huh?” 

_ “Zing,  _ point Kaspbrak.”

Eddie grinned feverishly, feeling victorious even if it wasn’t a real competition. 

“So,” Richie said, aversive without Eddie noticing, “how’s the wife, anyway?” 

“The w— what wife?” 

“Stan says you’re still going steady with that girl from school, Monica?”

A cold drop plunked into the warmth of Eddie’s stomach. “Myra,” he said, feeling odd about it, as if he were intersecting two parts of his life that should stay separate. Two circles that didn’t belong in the same Venn diagram. “She’s— we’re great.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Just saw her uh— like a week back.” 

“Yeah, cool.” 

Flat. His voice sounded flat. Richie never sounded deflated like that. 

Neither of them said anything for a moment. The conversation ran very suddenly dry, the ticking of the kitchen clock the loudest thing in the room. Richie might have actually cleared his throat, which only made things pressingly awkward, and they bowled over each other trying to speak and alleviate it. 

“Good for y—”

“Can I ask—” 

They halted again, Eddie closing his eyes and taking a patient breath. 

“You go,” Richie offered. 

Eddie almost wished he hadn’t, backtracking slightly. “I was just gonna ask something stupid, never mind.” 

“Nah, I like it too much when you sound stupid, plow ahead.”

His leg was bobbing again, unsure of how to word it, desperately wanting to change the subject and finding himself in a spot. He had a gut feeling, and he remembered being told once he shouldn’t ignore those. “Fuck, this is gonna sound so cryptic and weird, Rich.” 

“Isn’t that just us?” 

What a point. Eddie blinked. “Maybe you’re right.” 

“Okay, spill, what’s the stupid cryptic weird question?”

His breath trembled just slightly, sudden nerves crawling up the backs of his arms, raising the dark hair there. Eddie’s eyes flickered again to the kitchen sink drain without explanation, the atmosphere in the kitchen sinking, deflating, air collapsing on top of something suddenly evaporating out of existence. 

They were all crazy if they didn’t all share it, he thought, strangely. If they didn’t talk about it, if things didn’t coincide at least sometimes, they were all mad. 

“Have— nobody’s been following you lately, right?”

Richie’s line was silent for a beat too long. Eddie was holding his breath, glancing over his shoulder as if he was the one being pursued in his dreams. Richie's fuzzy phone voice finally returned. “Um, fuck, Eddie, that is a little fucking cryptic. I fucking hope not?”

A dog barked on the street outside and Eddie jolted, glance whipping to the window. “Okay, that’s not really reassuring, but—”

“Why do you ask? That’s actually like— ah.” 

“What?” 

“I just got goosebumps, just— go on.” the phone shifted again, as if he switched shoulders.

“I just had a weird dream. Stan was trying to encourage me to talk about it, so I just— wanted to ask.” Eddie swallowed, finding his throat dry. “Figured I’d ask.” 

“Not getting followed, but as far as strange dreams go—” 

Another bark. Eddie stood up straighter, the hair on the back of his neck raising. It clicked, the image falling into place and gaining form finally in his mind’s eye. “It was a do—” 

The key turned in the lock. She was home. Eddie’s whole body tensed, poised for flight, glancing down at his grease stained pants and dirty shoes. He had to stop himself from throwing the phone out of his hand, scrambling. “Fuck, fuck, I gotta go, lo— hah, soon I’ll talk— talk to you—” 

The line went dead. Richie had stood up from the couch, knees locked, something like dread blanketing his shoulders. “Eddie? Fuck.” He held onto the phone for a moment longer, staring at it in his palm and feeling cold before he finally hung it up. His mom must have come home. _Fuck._

What the fuck had that been all about? 

Javier, upside down in the armchair with his feet kicked over the back, gave him a look. “Sounded like a weird phone call.” 

Richie rubbed his arms for a second, waiting for the goosebumps to go down. He still felt flighty, distracted. “You’re a weird phone call.” He flicked Javier’s shin. 

Javier swore, reaching up to rub his leg and waving Richie off. “Don’t you have some girl to go obsess over?” 

“Actually,” Randy called from the kitchen. “He’s got a date tonight.” 

Welcome distraction. Even if his stomach suddenly felt unsettled in the sudden switch of subjects. “It isn’t a date, Randall, you’re coming too.” 

“No, of course not, we’re just going to the bar she works at when you know she’s on the clock so you can drool over her and I can wipe your chin, it’s not a date. You’re right.” 

“Jesus christ, a break. Can I get a break? From any of you?” Richie lifted his arms and dropped them, stepping onto the couch and over to duck momentarily into his room. He needed to settle down for a second. 

“You can always move out,” Randy suggested, lovingly, cramming the remainder of a stale bagel in his mouth. 

“No,” Ned pleaded, leaning out of his room, desk chair creaking. “Don’t tell him that, we need the rent.”

“Put on your cutest lingerie, Richie, I have a good feeling about your date tonight,” Randy called after him. 

Richie’s voice carried out of the tiny room, if just a  _ tad _ defensive. “Why don’t you get your own dick wet instead of trying to live vicariously through mine, dude, go catch some venereal disease for yourself. It’s more fun that way. I’ll do the honors and slap your cock in a book if you end up with gonorrhea, you’re just  _ such _ a pal.” 

Javier laughed, swearing again when he lost his balance and slipped out of the chair, banging a knee on the coffee table. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song mentioned:   
> It Never Rains in Southern California - Albert Hammond


	21. IN HINDSIGHT, MAYBE INVESTING IN NETFLIX WAS THE WAY TO GO

**SUMMER/FALL 1997**

**LOS ANGELES**

Richie didn’t think too long and hard about marriage, not often. Almost as if he’d jinx himself, somewhat out of fear of being too expectant. He had a good example to reference, although sometimes, though real as anything, his parents’ example felt too close to fantasy. They'd met in high school, fallen in love, and absolutely never looked back. Not once. 

He didn’t have bad parents, he didn’t have a dead parent, he didn’t have overbearing or expectant parents, he didn’t have any of the issues with parents each of his friends had. Bill’s parents, at some point or another, had finally gotten divorced, and he was shocked when Bill once admitted that he was _relieved_ . “They seem happier,” he’d said, and behind Richie’s rose colored glasses that seemed so awful, so devastating, two people who loved each other enough to get married and buy a house and have a couple of kids together, no matter what happened, happier _apart._

Maggie was the light of Wentworth’s life. No question. Richie had seen that, known it, his whole life, thought that everyone else’s parents were the outliers. “I will worship the ground she walks on,” his father had once told him, when Richie was young and had asked some question about the two of them, perched on his father’s lap, eyes full of the fresh bouquet on the kitchen table, “until the day I die. And if that ever changes, I’ll know it's my attitude that needs fixing.” Richie was witness to their devotion constantly, something he bemoaned in middle school and high school, something he was increasingly fascinated by as he grew older. They were a younger couple than most of his friends’ parents, sure, but they’d been married almost 25 years, and dinner still burned sometimes because they got too caught up dancing behind the island, The Mamas and the Papas on the kitchen radio. (Though he hated to admit it or even think about it, Richie had one too many times stayed up too late and had to jam his pillow over his ears a few times, even in his most recent stay at their house. Though disgusting and horrible as it was, he knew it said something for two people their age to still be getting it on with any sort of regularity. Richie just wished he could bleach his brain and maybe not know that particular fact about his parents’ relationship, subtle as they tried to be.) 

His dad had once scolded him when he mentioned cooties in elementary school, and corrected him another time when he was jealous of Beverly having joined their ranks, missing time with just the boys. Girls weren’t aliens, he’d told him, they weren’t gross either. “If anything, you’re probably the gross one at this stage, I feel like I’m gonna have to go out and get you deodorant and shaving cream soon.” 

Sometimes he felt pressured by the perfect example of his parents, especially after learning that their story was one more common in fiction than in real life. His dad once made a side comment about Beverly before they’d moved away, wondering out loud if red hair was going to start running in the family, making Richie burn and squawk at him until he took it back. Maggie kept a close eye on him and Kate, too, he could always feel it, acutely aware of the way that when Kate had come over for Thanksgiving senior year, Maggie had wondered if Richie had his plus one locked down for life. It had always made him unnecessarily nervous. When he passed nineteen unwed, single, and freshly experimenting with sleeping around, he somehow couldn’t help but feel late, despite teenage weddings being usually thought of as too early. 

He was going to feel all kinds of weird when he hit twenty two and didn’t yet have a son of his own. 

Richie thought about marriage when he looked at Stan and Patty, perhaps because he saw in Stan’s eyes what he so often saw in his own father’s, that look of sheer adoration. That worshiping the ground she walked on. Thinking about _love_ in and of itself felt a little cheesy. Richie tried to put the marriage label on it so it didn’t get too freeform and unconfined, wanting to box it in as something that may or may not happen to him eventually. But love he did think about sometimes too, loathe as he was to admit it. 

He’d told Kate he loved her, just once, laying by her side in her bed watching a favorite childhood movie after doing a decisively kind of adult thing, and maybe he did, just not quite in the way he’d thought. He remembered her kissing the top of his head, not saying it back in so many words, both of them hesitant in their own way facing down the precious few months before Richie was set to leave for college. They’d still meant something to each other despite things not ever really working out. 

So he’d told Kate, he’d said it that way only once, really. He’d told his parents he loved them, he’d told his friends he loved them as often as he could think to, but that was different. More different still was whatever the fuck had gotten into him on the bathroom floor at Stan’s.

 _“Loved me a little, when we were kids. I think you did, Rich.”_ The question, the accusation.

And the confession. “ _I’ve been in love with you the past couple years or so.”_

Richie didn’t know where the line was, whether that was truly the case or a tiny lie, whether you could be too young to be in love or whether it was the kind of disease which didn’t discriminate against any age. He’d felt it for a long time, he heard it in his voice when he talked about him whether it was reporting something exciting they’d done over the weekend together to his mother at twelve or talking about his little idiosyncrasies to strangers at a party at twenty one. That same tone his dad used about Maggie. Telling the grocer he was proud of her zucchinis this year or a neighbor that she’d recommended a good book to him. Went wasn’t a universal example, wasn’t the end all be all of men who were deeply in love, but Richie knew the two of them looked alike, sounded alike, often acted alike. If Richie could pick out the quiet little moments when his father was truly and desperately in love with his mother he could, unfortunately, spot the same in himself. 

The clean tidy box of marriage was not one he could fit himself and Eddie into. Before he’d realized what his feelings meant, as a preteen, Richie had decided he’d know he loved a girl if he wanted to marry her and have kids with her (proud at the time to be disgusted with the idea of both and thus impervious to any girl’s advances, though none were advancing at the time. Still wasn’t a huge problem for him). He didn’t know, then, how he’d go about knowing he was in love if it was with someone he _couldn’t_ marry, someone he _couldn’t_ ever have kids with. What, then, when the nuclear model simply didn’t apply? It made things messier, made love less definable and therefore all the more terrifying. 

Terrifying enough that Richie found himself crying over it at thirteen, bundled up in his Star Wars sheets, sniveling among the TIE Fighters and X-Wings, feeling like something went wrong and his life was already over because the only image in his head when he thought about love was the crooked, dimpled smile of that kid with the overbearing mom who lived near Bill, the little fiery one who was afraid of all these things that weren’t real but so brave when it came to seemingly everything else, sharp wit and big dreams and a soft touch, always touching him, always seemingly playing with the hem of Richie’s shirt instead of his own when his nerves acted up, which was often, turning Richie’s will to dust and knees to jelly. Thank god Richie was ignorant enough to that side of himself most of the time he’d lived in Derry, thank god he’d only wised up in the last couple years or so when the insults became glaringly accurate and suddenly dangerous and the world became a much scarier place. Then he’d gotten out, moved on, learned how to dress and act and talk so it wasn’t so glaringly obvious, chameleoned. 

He hated how he’d felt like a recovering addict dating girls for the first time. Hated how he felt like he’d fallen off the wagon when he’d kissed Cody Lancaster in high school, when he found himself in bed with guys once or twice in college, when, freshman year in Boston, he’d realized just how much the burn of a not-quite freshly shaven face against the side of his neck made his knees pleasantly weak. Always feeling like he was lying to himself when he was with a girl, lying to _her_ no matter how much he truly liked her, and equally like he was doing something wrong when he was with a boy, unable to just sit back and enjoy it like he thought teenagers were supposed to.

And always, always, the daydreams turning to the same face, the same silhouette, the same familiar voice carried over years and hundreds now thousands of miles. Richie thought for a long time Eddie plagued him because he was something he couldn’t have, tried to brush his affection for him off as something that was enticing because it was forbidden, but there it was. There was no excuse, now, for how things had gone when he’d stayed at Eddie’s apartment. He couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t stop thinking about how they’d explored each other even for a little bit in bed that night, both of them scared and embarrassed and shrinking far away from it the next day. It could have been written off as some fluke, (Richie for a while afterward blaming himself for imposing some gross unwanted homoerotic _thing_ onto his closest friend and feeling dirty and monstrous for it) but then there had been Chicago. The almost shy, private birthday gift, the big brown puppy-eyed looks during the fashion show and the party, the almost-dancing on the roof, the kiss heard round the country. 

There was all the confirmation Richie had needed, and there he was, running away from it. 

So far and so fast that Eddie was forced to get over it, moving on quicker than what felt right. 

It had always been Eddie. Richie was crushed to find him still walking, smiling, and sharp tongued through his daydreams all the way out in California, at the top of the cast list in his good dreams, at the tip of his tongue the moment he had a drop of alcohol in him. Something he really couldn’t run or hide from, something he’d been tamping down and brushing under the rug since he was maybe eleven, something he really couldn’t have. Not anymore, at least. 

Then Sandy. 

The bar she worked at was an older one, a bygone tourist trap, now filled with an older crowd, mostly local clientele. There was live music on the weekends, younger bands sometimes in an attempt to bring in a fresher crowd, odds and ends on stage during the week. An open mic night here, trivia every once in a blue moon, and once, almost embarrassingly, a local improv group. The bar was crowded with kitschy touristy shit, oldies most often pumping over the speakers when the stage was empty (and once, mysteriously, an entire night of only Motley Crue, though it wasn’t a designated theme night.) 

Randy accompanied Richie the first few times he braved the bar during Sandy’s shift, a generous wingman and a buffer just in case. In case of what, Richie hadn’t been sure at first, realizing only later that he’d been so immediately interested in Sandy that he was terrified of her thinking of him only as a friend. Randy being there would offset the pressure, would make it ambiguous enough that maybe Richie’s intentions could also be seen as strictly platonic if (and only if) it turned out that this was the case with hers. 

She commanded the bar despite being, on first glance, the youngest employee, handling orders and small talk and complaints and absolutely racking up tips with ease. Richie expected nothing less from the girl who’d scraped him off the balcony at that party with a cigarette and a smile, the two things he’d needed exactly most in the moment, but was blown away by her nonetheless. She’d given him another scavenger’s gift one night they’d shown up, a glass beaded bracelet with daisies painted on every other bead, a little chipped and faded with time. It was something he knew he was going to treasure the moment it touched his palm. Randy poked fun at him every time they left the bar, claiming Richie looked like he’d just gotten off Splash Mountain on the long walk home, sweating and ruffled and chock full of adrenaline and bliss and a cheap beer or two. 

Falling for her felt like tripping over a curb in a dream, walking along aimlessly and suddenly spinning through air, waking up confused somewhere completely different. It felt like that the first time he kissed her, absolutely buzzing on the beach, having sat in the crowded bar among a reeking gang of forty/fifty-something year old bikers for nearly five hours waiting for her shift to let out. (He’d made a few friends among them over the course of the evening, and Sandy had seemed beyond impressed that Richie had pulled off getting on the good side of what seemed to be a somewhat rough and tumble leather clad pack of bristling older men who’d somewhat cryptically offered their “services” if he was ever in “trouble”.) Sandy, tireless, wanted to hunt for sand dollars in the moonlight once she got off, the light ends of her hair silver against the back of her black work shirt, and had lead Richie into the foaming surf. Just ankle deep. He’d been initially intimidated somewhat by the churning black water, not wanting to overstep despite her encouragement and tugging at his hands, her back fearlessly to the tide. He’d kissed her then, eventually, finally, deciding it was better to do _something_ than torture himself with quiet unassuming friendship when every night he was dying to lean over the bar and find out what her chapstick tasted like, fantasizing about stealing her quick silver tongue for a moment of personal time among the other patrons each time he sat on the uncomfortable worn-down barstools, cloying for even a glance out of the corner of her eye. 

It went over, Richie was somewhat proud to say, famously. Javier had spared him any comments when he’d come home that night, grinning ear to ear, soaked to the bone, and reeking of saltwater and cigarette smoke and Sandy’s earthy body spray. Only a knowing look, a cocked eyebrow.

Their time together, while increasingly frequent as the weeks went on, felt so precious, nights after work under the glow of her prized purple lava lamp on her tiny night stand, brought from her childhood bedroom in Oklahoma years ago and decorated with paint markers over bygone years. 

Richie was absolutely fascinated with her. He watched her, perched on the end of her bed, a compact and a bristly little brush thing in hand, applying mascara one morning. The little rituals like that, the things she did with grace and ease, thinking herself unobserved while Richie paid rapt attention. He’d tried contacts in high school, had failed miserably because he was too scared to get his fingers that close to his eye, let alone put something in them. And here Sandy was, stroking her lashes with precision, blinking like it was no big issue, mouth slightly open, lips pink from morning kisses. Stripes from her blinds across her tanned thighs, tracing the curve of her quads, a wiry lock of hair accidentally left out of her ponytail soft against the nape of her neck. And Richie could feel it coming on, could feel it crawl up his spine, raise his arm hair, tint his face; he loved her. She wore little blue lightweight sneakers without socks, something Richie could never do. He’d get blisters and stink the things up with foot sweat. She made up words when she didn’t know the lyrics to the song on her car radio, ridiculous and outlandish things about dinosaurs or cowboys and sometimes about Richie, singing to him until he felt like he was boiling over and had to kiss her, then she kept singing into his mouth, like there was a more direct line to his heart. She snuck into the shower before work with him when she caught him smoking, more upset that he hadn’t bothered to share than that he was smoking in her bathroom, stealing hits off the spliff and once or twice from his mouth, smoke and steam tumbling between them when they laughed. 

His only complaint was that she always took his glasses off to kiss him. He didn’t know _how_ to complain, he knew it could be bulky and awkward and unpleasant to make out with them on, but in addition to sometimes leaving him prematurely feeling fumbling and exposed he couldn’t see her. Even when he cupped her face and squinted and focused the best he could he still couldn’t _see_ her, he wanted to see her. 

The first time they had sex saw Richie more nervous and awkward in the bedroom than he’d ever been, the initial exploratory virginity-scorning venture with Kate included. They’d been together a month, officially, and Richie had held out as long as he could, having slowed down what could have been it a couple times. Which was new. Like he was making sure of something, like he knew he was making himself more vulnerable than usual, like he knew how bad it would hurt if he never saw her again afterward even if that was something he’d tried to get used to in Boston. He liked to think he’d at least somewhat gotten the hang of sex, had wrapped his mind around it as just something people together did sometimes, but the first time with Sandy he found himself trembling and fumbling and at tangled up in his shirt early on, then struggling for far too long with the clasp on her bra and forcing her to get it undone for him, eventually stopping her at the waistband of his boxers before they could even get anywhere, words flying out at maybe the worst time, exposing something that, if he’d wanted to, he could have brought up when the situation was less immediate. 

“I’ve slept with guys,” he’d blurted, vision bleary and heart beating hard enough to hurt, fingers laced around her small wrists, preventing her hands from dipping any further south.

And her response, which came after an understandable pause, sweet and almost a little teasing on her honeysuckle voice, “Yeah? Me too.”

Her hands relaxed, palms flattening out on his stomach, nonthreatening, and it was all Richie could do to stare at her.

It was something he was harboring guilt about after the incident over Christmas break with Kate, having not told her that. Unsure how. He’d known he was clean, had been tested and the whole nine yards just in case and just to take his mind off the worry of _what if_ , glared at by the Freddie Mercury poster on his dorm room wall for months before cracking, but he hadn’t disclosed that to Kate. Felt like maybe he should have, even if there was no problem there health wise, even if they trusted each other. 

Guilt. 

Maybe thus why it spilled out unintentionally all over poor Sandy. 

“But I mean I’m good, I don’t— I’m clean,” he’d followed up with, oddly increasingly tense with how well she was taking it, how little she had to say about it. “And I’m not gay.” 

“Okay.” And after a stretch of his awed silence, softer, “Richie, I believe you.”

He felt a little sick, maybe with himself for feeling oddly dirty anyway; his test results all came back negative last time he’d been to a clinic but it still felt as if there was _something_ still on him he couldn't wash off, and then he thought, oddly, maybe his vision was getting worse. Then Sandy was sitting back on his thighs and cupping his face, asking him why he was crying, and he realized he was. They’d already had the (mock-casual, as casual as possible) discussion about testing weeks ago, and Sandy was on birth control, which was reassuring, they’d disclosed the necessary information to be smart about the whole thing and Richie had still felt the need to blurt that out, feeling only worse after it. 

But she talked him down. She managed it, managed _him._ She laughed a little, even, handing him his glasses back when he whined that he couldn’t find them and sat in his lap, playing with his hair until it stuck up funny around his ears. Introduced him to a word he’d heard before but was never really clear on, had certainly never thought to apply to himself. 

Bisexual. Richie wasn’t sure about it, even if the way Sandy described it fit pretty well with his experience, but he wasn’t sure he really _wanted_ a word for it. At the same time, it was reassuring to know maybe there _was_ a word for it, that he wasn’t some strange, hedonistic freak of nature that wanted his cake and to eat it too, 

_(wanted his dick and to eat pu—? no, stick with the original, weirdo.)_

he was, perhaps, okay. If not normal, then next to it, at least. Sandy had apparently had one of these _biseuxal_ friends in high school, the two of them having even experimented together a little bit. Sandy had come out of it, in fact, more comfortable that she was straight. Richie gawked, and Sandy laughed again, told him it was easier for girls. He didn’t know what that meant, didn’t know if that was true, considering Sandy was one of the easiest people to love and be attracted to in the world and maybe she just had a unique perspective on things. 

And then, while they’d proceeded with a little caution, Richie a little embarrassed about _crying_ for fucks sake and Sandy seemingly wanting to be a little more delicate with him (which made him feel a little like crying _again_ , stupidly enough), the sex had been wonderful. 

“Girlfriend sex,” Javier had said, a month prior when Richie had burst in the door and announced that he and Sandy were finally going steady, offering a high five. “Way nicer when it’s locked down, dude.” Javier wasn’t the type to be generally horny or disrespectful, Richie saw what he meant. The expectations were lower, there was no fear of catching feelings that were already established and reciprocated, and god, Richie loved absolutely nothing more than waking up at Sandy’s place, getting up and grabbing her a snack or coffee from the kitchen for her to wake up to, setting it on her little nightstand, slotting back into her little bed beside her little body, wrapping his gangly arms around her little bare waist, grateful. Just grateful for her. 

Come September, Richie was in love, deep in it, absolutely _screwed_ , and while it strangely didn’t feel like it was the first time, this one was different. He didn’t feel exposed when he gazed at her, didn’t feel like he had anything to hide, didn’t walk on eggshells talking to her drunk. He didn’t have to be exact when he touched her, didn’t have any fear of accidentally blowing some time-hardened secret. It took him some time, but he warmed up. Got used to it. Started to really, truly love being in love, which was easier with the example of his, as Randy put it once, whipped-to-shit-and-happy-about-it father. When he thought looked beautiful he told her, when he wanted to kiss her he did, when he wanted to have sex with her he wooed her and, most of the time, then they did, blanketed in some old record of hers and washed in the warm violet lava lamp light which, afterward, snuggling on their backs, shifted light on her ceiling like looking up at the surface of the ocean from underwater. It was wonderful. While she didn’t burn dinner (it was hard to do with one of those microwavable ramen cups) she did let it grow cold in the microwave once because a good song came on the radio while she was in the kitchen and Richie decided he couldn’t do anything else that night before he danced with her, so he did. He wanted to do everything with her, everything for her, suddenly, wanted to do everything to the point where it was almost a little sickening, and had to hold himself back sometimes so they’d both have their own personal lives. He tried very hard not to come in to see her at work all the time, limiting himself to twice a week so she had time there without him. Carted his toothbrush and a change of clothes back and forth to and from her place so he didn’t accidentally move in with her, even though it was inconvenient and the thought of two toothbrushes on the sink and a drawer emptied out for him made his heart sing and his toes kind of numb. She’d met him hammered in a bucket hat that wasn’t even his, for fucks sake, and she seemed to like him well enough even this far in. Even after getting to know him. Liked his Voices, even had favorites, made requests. 

Richie Tozier couldn’t rightfully ask for more. 

Eddie, oddly, was still there, though he lingered on the fringes. Maybe it was the phone calls, the eventual answering machine messages once Richie finally got around to buying one, if not quite consistent then just more regular as summer closed and fall descended. He usually kept his distance in Richie’s dreams, but once or twice, he’d made a few alarming appearances. Once, infamously in Richie’s mind, he’d been having a pleasant dream that he was in bed with his girlfriend, nosing into her neck, feeling the light trace of her nails drag down his spine, but when she breathed out his name it wasn’t her voice, was distinctly masculine, and Richie had reeled back to find he was in the middle of a wet dream about his best friend. Not the first, maybe, but the first in a very long time, the first while he was in a committed relationship. He’d gotten out of bed and chain smoked until the creeping shivers up and down his spine had finally dissipated. 

Eddie was more often present in the quiet daydream moments, cheeks pink with sunburn on the beach, smile wide and brimming racing Richie on roller skates, asleep bundled up in Richie’s nest of t-shirts and blankets on his mattress on the floor, the palm tree outside casting shifting shadows on his bare back. These felt safe, okay, these didn’t feel like his heart was cheating; Eddie was his friend, he missed him, it was normal. 

The other dreams, however, quite easily crossed that line. 

Worse were the nightmares, which were thankfully quickly becoming few and far between, but Richie still woke up shaking and tearful when faced with images of Eddie slipping through his fingers in whatever twisted way his subconscious dared to make up next. 

He could still love him, Richie thought, but he had to love him like he loved Stanley or Bill or Beverly. Love him more in his head, more in his memory, love Sandy with his heart. Section it out, put it away in tidy little boxes, safe and separate from each other. 

The guilt about it was tricky, complex. Easily dismissed when Richie thought about her, when Richie caught himself watching her walk along the beach as if in slow motion, hair stirred gently by the sea breeze, Sandy, everything. She had a key to his apartment, eventually, and Richie had once caught himself startled listening to one of Eddie’s answering machine rants alone in the apartment when she’d entered unexpectedly, immediately hitting the button to delete it and cutting off his voice. As if he was doing something wrong. But how could he be, when it was Eddie’s messages he deleted and Sandy’s necklace his apartment key hung on? 

Fall weather in LA, as it turned out, was spectacular. Richie had braced himself for the slow then sudden onset of freezing rain, the reluctant coats from closets, boots and snow pants and knit hats and gloves waiting ominously in the periphery. He’d expected some signal, more rainfall, maybe, as Richie was pretty sure it had maybe only rained once or twice all summer since his arrival in June, but September eased into October without a hitch. 

Still without a car but close now to affording one, Richie was still stuck walking everywhere he could. He picked up a bad habit of getting snacks and what groceries he could from the 7 Eleven, Boris always happy to have him stop by, sneaking an extra lighter or Jack Daniels mini into his bag when he could. He stopped by after work one afternoon to pick up cigarettes, rolling papers, and ice cream for himself and Sandy, planning to stay the night at her place because neither of them had to work the next day. 

When he stepped outside the store, under the awning over the gas pumps, he was mostly concerned with his cassette player skipping. He pulled it out of the pocket of his shorts and gave it a good whack, frowning as the tape stopped. He popped the case open, careful in handling it, and flipped it over to make sure nothing was wrong with the tape itself. 

_1990Eddie_

It looked fine, coiled neatly on the rolls through the little plastic windows beneath the label. Richie stared at it for another moment before settling it back inside the player and rewinding a little, hoping backtracking would fix the issue. John Fogarty’s voice, sure enough, sprang back to life in his headphones.

He dug in his pocket for the kibble he’d kept there all day, clicking his tongue. Only Stardust appeared out of the bushes, Ziggy nowhere to be found, and Richie crouched down as she bumped her skinny gray head against his ankles. Eddie had cautioned him not to name the 7 Eleven cats on their last call, warning him against getting attached, but it hadn’t been his idea in the end. Sandy’s fault.

“Sorry, big girl,” he said, patting Stardust’s shaggy side as she cried at him. “Sandy’s at home, I’ll say hi for you, I promise.” He shook a few kernels onto the asphalt for her, happy to take a second and watch her crunch them up in her gnarly stray cat teeth, when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, as if lighting was close. 

There was the rain. Richie swore. He hadn’t even noticed the clouds on the walk from Blockbuster to the gas station, sun sinking quicker and quicker every afternoon, darkness attributed to night falling. Stardust tensed up as well, sensing the storm, and darted away before she finished her kibble, drawing Richie’s eye off to the side street that lead around the back of the convenience store. 

His back tensed immediately, dread seeping into the marrow of his bones. 

There was a dog on the blurry edges of the gas station lighting. 

Almost used to it at that point, Richie stood still, letting reason and reality clash in his brain. 

You think you see it, you know logically you cannot be seeing it, but you allow it to exist. Hand still cupped, Richie shook the stray kibbles of cat food from his palm and straightened, the crinkle of his 7 Eleven bag deafening in the quiet white noise of the light rain. 

There was a dog. 

Richie closed his eyes, the black silhouette of it burned on the back of his eyelids, hand tight on his grocery bag, everything a burning lemon-lime green imprint from the neon lighting the pumps, and opened them.

There was a still a dog. 

Richie realized with a cold drop of certainty that this particular dog had nothing to do with Richie’s previous issues concerning ghost canines or whatever the fuck kept stopping his car and his heart in his dreams and was, in fact, quite a real and ordinary dog. This was also concerning. Richie smelled like cat food and cat and he wasn’t sure what the signs of rabies were but if he squinted the thing was foaming, large blocky head hung low, once thick muscles looking drained over skinny shoulder blades rolling together with a coiled sort of tension. It growled and started Richie into motion, backing quickly against a pump and looking frantically down the side streets, seeing no one available to help. 

“Hiya, Fido,” he rasped, as if buying himself time, as if this was the kind of thing he could talk his way out of, “you don’t happen to be a fan of Meow Mix, do you?” 

He could have gone back inside. Boris had maybe 100 pounds of muscle on him, more than that on this poor stray dog, but Richie’s reason was frozen over for the time being. The dog set a heavy paw forward and Richie lurched into action, slipping around the side of the pump and bolting, thinking maybe if he ran it would simply leave him alone, want an easier target. The sudden uproar of barking quickly put that thought to rest. The dog took off after him, springing into action as if it’d been eager for the chase. 

Richie’s headphones slipped off his head and fell crooked around his neck, bag tight in his hand. He cried out for help as he bustled through the streets, suddenly having to come to terms with the reality that he could very well be mauled by a perfectly normal stray dog in a perfectly normal neighborhood of LA, which was, for some reason, just not how he thought he would go. 

His sneakers filled with dirty water as puddles soaked the canvas, heart tight and hot in his chest as he pressed forward, skirting around a corner and hearing the rapid foamy breath and quick heavy pounce of paws on pavement again. He stumbled around a corner, overcorrecting, and cried out, fearing the instant he hit the ground he was done for. The dog was hot on his heels, though running with a limp as if it had come out on the bad side of a fight recently. Richie scraped up his palm on the pavement as he caught himself, sense of direction failing him when he turned down a random alleyway in a desperate attempt to get away. 

An image reel started to flash at the back of his mind, two boys on one bike barreling away from an abandoned house at the end of the street, overgrown with weeds and sunflowers, mid-afternoon sunshine blanketing something that couldn’t have possibly been real pursuing them. Richie pushed the images away, suddenly face to face with a chain link fence and nearly breaking his teeth on a support pole when he ran into it. 

He had precious seconds to remember that he could climb and put that to good use, scrambling up one side as the dog pelted toward him, snapping at one of his shoelaces before he could get his foot out of reach. Frantic, and never the most prolific athlete, Richie swung his leg over and jumped. 

His back hit the scraggy wet grass and knocked the breath clean out of him in a rush. He didn’t have the air to scream when the dog collided with the chain link, rattling hard enough to shake his bones. Safe for the moment, Richie rolled onto his side, arms crossed over his chest, face pressing into the ground. He laid there for a moment, unable to properly catch his breath, the dog still barking and lunging feet from his face, separated only by the chain link. 

Dazed, he worried for a moment he’d hit his head. His eyes popped open, immediately looking over his shoulder to make sure there was no way for the dog to slip through the fence, finding none, though not entirely comforted by the way it continued to bark and lunge and snap at the metal, teeth clicking together harshly. When he probed around the back with a shaking hand, his head seemed fine, if a little clouded with fear, his pulse frantic and loud in his ears. He’d dropped his bag, that was a loss, he could see it sitting a few feet away on the other side of the fence. Guess the damn dog was getting Ben and Jerry’s and nicotine for dinner. Fucker. 

His heart dropped out of his ass in the moment he thought he’d lost the cassette player, but there it was. Hadn’t landed on the thing itself, although his headphones were crumpled and marred, having been crushed under him in the fall. He tried counting his blessings as he shoved the whole mess back into his pocket, legs shaking and useless for a moment. 

When he did manage to get to his feet he was slammed by imagery, a projector running in his head that he wasn’t operating. His letterman jacket from high school, tattered in orange and black rags, name stitched on the back—

Richie pressed a hand to the terra-cotta of the building on one side of the alley to steady himself, woozy suddenly.

He never owned a letterman jacket. He didn’t even go to Derry High, his colors weren’t black and orange. Yet he remembered it with such clarity, TOZIER spelled out on the back, his skinny chest pressed to Bill’s back, clinging to his waist like life depended on it and maybe it had— 

Richie grew dizzier on the next step, eyes burning inexplicably. He scrubbed his hands under his glasses as he tried to carry on, limping just slightly from his fall. A fire lit under his ass the moment he heard the dog bark again and Richie was off, banking a hard right toward Sandy’s apartment, sneakers chewing up the pavement. He didn’t stop until he nearly bowled her over in the doorway, dripping and shaking, wild eyed. 

Something was _wrong_ about that, something he couldn’t explain was so utterly _off_ about that whole event, leaving him babbling and frantic as Sandy tried to at least coax him down onto the couch to settle in. The rainwater and dirt on his face, hair dripping over his brow and coldly down the back of his neck, had thankfully covered the few panicked tears that had slipped out, something far beyond the one instance of being chased by a stray and possibly rabid dog forced into the forefront of his mind without him being quite able to reconcile with it. 

“Something happened,” he told her later that night, voice uncharacteristically hoarse and distant, “I think something really bad happened, not just to me, but I can’t remember it. I don’t even think to remember it, most of the time, unless someone else brings it up or something like _that_ happens.” Something like that, like the dog, like the odd look in Stanley’s eye, like a trip to Niagara Falls which felt much too hazy and far away for it to have happened less than a year prior, like— like— hadn’t someone mentioned him being followed? Like that. 

Sandy had wanted to get his tarot read, had suggested taking him to her friend the fortune teller under the underpass, but it took coaxing, dread plaguing him every time he considered it. 

For good reason, as it turned out. The medium had recoiled the moment the two of them breached her tent, wanting Richie out before he could so much as step one foot into the canvas, hung heavy with tapestries. 

She hadn’t explained, and Sandy had tried to reassure him that she was just sensitive, maybe his bad dreams had been a little overwhelming and obvious to her, that she was having a bad day. Richie wasn’t so sure. For someone who didn’t really even buy into the whole star signs or tarot or full moon shit, the event bothered him to his core. He didn’t sleep well the rest of the week, even curled up with Sandy with the lingering scent of incense burning out on her desk.

Somehow, yet not unsurprisingly, within a few weeks, it was as if the altercation with the dog had never happened in Richie’s mind. 

Fall crept forward, Richie pressed on, though starting to grow increasingly anxious about at least his job and the fear of eternal damnation next to Ned at the Blockbuster. Even Ned had a plan for moving on though a directing gig still eluded him: a friend of his who lived in Scotts Valley had a friend who had some convoluted idea about on-demand movies, DVDs mailed straight to the door, and they apparently wanted Ned in on it. Richie thought that was kind of ridiculous, thought that there was a kind of magic in getting lost in a Blockbuster searching for a movie, thought nothing could really replace that, certainly not DVDs by _mail_ , for fucks sake. But he’d let Ned dream, declining when he offered Richie a slice of the pie. 

Richie himself hadn’t had much luck in branching out yet, had contacted a few radio stations to no avail, had sucked it up and auditioned for a couple radio commercials, avoiding anything involving his face, despite Sandy’s encouragement that he might give acting a try. She herself worked with a group of other girls in a theater somewhere near her apartment, putting on all-female Shakespeare renditions in between infomercial and extra gigs. 

There was Eddie’s voice sometimes when Richie came home, a recording, safe and warm and familiar, talking him to sleep on the couch. His roommates didn’t get nearly as many messages, in fact Richie was the primary user of the phone as it was in the apartment. Once Randy’s mom, once a message for Ned from work, but beyond that, mostly Eddie taking up the messages on the voicemail. Richie’s favorite recordings were the ones where he knew Eddie expected him to pick up and had nothing of real importance to say, idle chat. He rambled on in the message each time anyway, talking to no one in particular, hoping, maybe, for Richie to interrupt him and pick up. Richie had gotten good at carving out time to call him back, carving out more time to call everyone back, happy in fact that the answering machine gave him a way to keep in touch better. 

There was something in his tone, sometimes, something he hid well on live calls but which crept out when he had too much time to think and pour his heart out to the answering machine. Something Richie picked up on easily. Something unsettled, but something he never wanted to address when Richie called him back, dismissive. Never quite cheery, Eddie had a tendency to make even the most wonderful sounding days sound like something of a drag, but he put on a brave face well enough. Richie assumed sometimes he did too, wanting to be brave on a call with him. Squeaky clean reports were so much easier to swallow, even if they both knew they were laced with little white lies. 

Sometimes Bev’s bright _Call me back when you get a chance, bonehead, I miss you!_ or Stan’s _I know it’s noon there, Richie, your ass better be at work, not still in bed_ brightened his day. His friend’s voices from so far away, pumped directly into his living room.

Richie found himself sometimes glued to the couch in the living room for hours on end on the phone with any one of them, shooting shit or getting deep, catching up or checking in.

“I’m gonna marry her someday,” Stanley had announced one afternoon when the conversation turned to Patty, as it often did with Stan nowadays. “I really think I’m gonna marry her. Maybe right after we graduate, I dunno, I don’t wanna rush her, but I can see it on the horizon. I should get a job first. She deserves that much, I should probably be properly employed before I face down her father.” 

“I’m rooting for you lovebirds,” Richie had said, almost offhanded, trying desperately to bite his tongue to keep from saying something, god forbid, similar about Sandy. 

And Bill, once, confessing he wanted so badly to come out but hadn’t had the time. “I’ll have the money soon though, I promise. It’s all a matter in coordinating plans.”

“Look at us, _coordinating plans_ like big boys,” Richie had said, thrilled at the idea. “What do you mean you’ll have the money, have you finally started whoring yourself out on the side?” 

Bill laughed, a welcome sound, something Richie realized it had been too long since he’d heard, and said, somewhat cryptically, “Big things coming, Richie. I’ll make it down there sometime soon, you have my word.” 

Sandy often stole him away from the answering machine, was the main reason his messages so often racked up. Her apartment was an ideal place for the two of them to get some time alone, despite Sandy, apparently, having a roommate. She was scarce enough that Richie hardly ever saw a glimpse of her, never knew when she was home. Richie, it seemed, was the real second roommate, there so often that Sandy once jokingly suggested that he should start paying Nora’s rent, something that made him laugh and think too hard, maybe, about moving in with her. 

RichieandSandy, SandyandRichie, their names started to glue together the longer they were together. Randy no longer bothered just Richie into attending parties or scoping out obscure bars, he invited RichieandSandy, _you and that girlfriend of yours, lover boy_ ; Sandy’s friends expecting him as a plus one whenever they invited Sandy anywhere. This, too, felt familiar, the dynamic duo, the terror twins, the connection of his name with someone else’s, the simple acceptance of Richie entering a room with someone else, some little fireball storm cloud, trailing behind him like they were linked. New, as with everything with her, but glaringly familiar, the grown up version of many a childhood sentiment. Richie desperately kept himself from thinking on it too hard, from comparing things, from drawing too many conclusions. 

It kept him, for the most part, happy. 

Sandy helped pretty well with that. 

“I’m taking you out,” she said, one afternoon that could have been somewhere in November, maybe. Time flew with her. “I wanna introduce you to a friend of mine.” 

Richie, that night in maybeNovember, met a few of Sandy’s friends. Sandy’s friends were people who were typically very easy to get along with, perhaps a little strange, people whom Richie enjoyed immensely and who didn’t seem to mind him all too much. He was happy to follow Sandy anywhere, knowing his finger looped through the back belt loop of her shorts as she pressed onward into something and somewhere meant he was taken care of, he could ride things out, she’d catch him at the end of the night. Being unquestioning, for a little while, felt nice. Blind love in the best way, a comfort in a time when Richie felt like he’d been tasked lately with one too many big life decisions. 

Richie felt that sentiment screech to a halt the moment one of Sandy’s friends dumped a baggie of white powder onto his glass coffee table and started to cut it into lines. 

She was next to him, a hand on his knee like muscle memory, chatting idly with someone on her opposite side. Richie felt a twinge in the back of his brain, a tiny but shrill warning siren. Something leftover from fear of getting in trouble in grade school, the _don’t get caught up in the wrong crowd_ and _just say no_ lectures, the stern warning about heroin from his upstanding dentist father the day he finally left home. 

Went hadn’t said anything about coke.

His heart was already in his chest, nerves singing, when Sandy finally caught wind of what was going on, observing in her fatally cool manner, squeezing Richie’s knee. 

“Have you ever tried this?” she asked, casual as if asking Richie if he’d ever smoked a cigarette at a pool party in high school. 

He shook his head, and while Sandy didn’t say anything to that, didn’t even remotely indicate any pressure that tonight was the night that he should, or even that she was planning to partake, he knew within a second of looking at her he was going to.

But she agreed to do it with him, if he so wanted to. She’d dabbled, she said, she’d get him home safe. 

That was all the reassurance he needed. 

“Buyer goes first, eager beaver,” Sandy said, smiling at him and tugging lightly on the back of his shirt when he’d leaned forward to pick up one of the clippings of bendy straw laid out on the table. And there was something sexy about that, something about Sandy knowing how to do this, that sent a thrill straight from his toes to his brain. Something that told him this was where he needed to be tonight, what he needed to do, and his worry (and maybe most of his reason) was far out the window when it was his turn in the circle of twenty somethings around the coffee table. 

He’d seen this done in movies, felt like quite the expert, felt with his heart hammering in his chest like this was an opening scene to nothing more than a pointedly exciting and perhaps a little overdone montage, bent forward, lined up his straw, wishing maybe it was a dollar bill at the least, and snorted the line.

It didn’t hurt, per say, but Jesus, was there a Sensation. A burn and a twinge of taste, a sort of numbing down the back of his throat, all things that worried that maybe he’d done something wrong. Swallowed it like some idiot, made a fool of himself in front of his girlfriend and all her friends. Scarier still was the image pressing at the back of his mind of Uma Thurman on her back on the floor on the big screen, nose bloodied, mouth foaming, John Travolta suddenly in a tissy realizing he may as well have just killed her. 

But hey, it wasn’t heroin. Far from it. 

Richie sat back, thumbing around his fuzzy feeling nostril and getting himself to settle in as Sandy bent forward, sweeping up her own line. 

As soon as she started to sit back, colors got a little brighter. She tossed a lock of hair over a shoulder to look at him, slow and light, Richie locking in on the whisky color of her eyes, watching as her pupils inflated and pushed the iris to the edges. She scrunched her nose and shook her head a little and Richie laughed, suddenly liking his laugh, suddenly thinking his laugh sounded clean and clear and downright charming, and wanting to hear it again. “Hey, pretty lady,” he said, voice somehow not grating anymore, setting Sandy’s chin between his thumb and his pointer finger like she fit there in the palm of his hand. 

And when she laughed? World ending. In the best way. “Okay, so I don’t even have to ask if you’re feeling it, do I?” 

Richie didn’t, truthfully, feel all that different. He sniffed, nose still feeling a little numb and uncomfortable, and looked around the room. “Is this it?” He didn’t really feel all that high, didn’t feel anything dramatic like dropping acid, almost waiting for the visuals. 

Sandy took his hand, the skin of her palm smooth and soft and perfect, and stood in one fluid motion. “Let’s get you talking, motormouth, I have a feeling you’re going to love this.” Sandy plunged into a different crowd in the kitchen and Richie, tied to her with little invisible strings of awe, followed easily. 

If Richie wasn’t the bell of the ball usually, Cinderella had another thing coming once he settled into the high. Everyone, absolutely every person in the apartment that night, was now a close personal friend, was a slack jawed biggest fan, was a Richie Tozier enthusiast. If Richie was keyed up to an 8 on a 1-10 scale when he got a few drinks in his system, he was easily pushing a 12 on cocaine. He wasn’t awkward, he was merely creative, wasn’t nerdy, eclectic. Insecurities bloomed into sources of pride. Complete strangers were nothing more than other human beings Richie could level with, and leveling, he found, was a miraculous sort of thing. He wasn’t pandering for laughs, he was _winning_ them, everything out of his mouth easily downright gut splitting hilarious, the glitter of tears from cackling like tiny droplets from a fountain of youth on these not-so-strange stranger’s faces. Richie didn’t feel like the center of attention, he felt like the eye of a hurricane, the storm around him somehow at the command of his fingertips. 

Sandy usually glowed, but tonight she was on fire, she was a butterfly, she was, better yet, Richie’s, sticking by his side and seemingly pleased to bits about his sudden onset of additional charm. Fifteen minutes in, which felt around two days, Richie decided he was right then and there going to sweep her directly off her feet. He was going full Titanic, holding her waist as she stood on the bow of The Unsinkable Ship. He fit his hand against the small of her back, finding the planes of his palm fit so exactly into the curve of her spine, turning her gently, effortlessly, more toward him, away from these other people who would never matter a fraction as much to him as she did. 

“Hey, Sandy, look at me,” he said in his new caramel voice, the reward centers of his brain lighting up like a Christmas tree when she did, her eyelashes heavy and her smile immaculate. “We’re perfect for each other.” A simply stated fact, nothing less.

She seemed to agree wordlessly, taking his face in both her hands, which also fit like puzzle pieces against his jaw, and kissed him hard enough to knock his socks clean off. After a blazing moment, “Well put, Tozier.”

Their plans changed fast, 

_fast fast fast fast fast_

the party turning into nothing more than a pitstop on their hurricane date night. This became apparent when Sandy lead him off, her very skin buzzing, absolutely electric all over, Richie was shocked her hair wasn’t standing on end. His was, he thought, on the back of his neck, then all over his arms and his chest and up his legs and everywhere when she gently backed him against a door to who cared where, on him, ecstatic. “Woah, hey now,” he said, unable to keep from talking and unable to care, head thumping back against the door like it was nothing. “What’s all this about all of the sudden?” Richie asked, not mad about it at all, more curious, intrigued by this development, thinking he could maybe feel the grain of the wooden door through his shirt. More interesting still was her palms smoothing up his sides under his shirt, his back arching into it, the feeling only magnified. She kissed him again, being more graceful with her words than him, and Richie figured now was as good a time as ever to put his mouth to better use. Sandy slotted against him with what felt like precision, like choreographed dancing, and Richie gathered her up in his arms and lifted her onto her toes, kissing her like it was what he was born to do, no one else in the apartment mattering or seeming to care. “What’s the plan?” he asked again when her mouth slipped briefly from his, opening him up to talking again, trusting her implicitly without having any idea what she might say. Exciting, wasn’t it?

Lighting zipped up his spinal cord and hit his brain with a clutch of little shockwaves when she lightly sank her teeth into the lobe of his ear, hot breath ghosting over it. “I’m taking you home.” 

Richie went gladly.

He’d expected to feel hungover the next morning, expected some awful crash, expected anything anyone had ever warned him against when it came to any number of illicit substances. But he woke up unharmed, undressed, mouth maybe a little dry, Sandy in nothing but her tan lines next to him in her bed. Untouched by the night, it seemed, the two of them having ridden it out in the comfort of Sandy’s bedroom, together. The morning was a thin slice of slowness, molasses morning, a deep breath before a plunge Richie had no idea he was about to take. 

On the other side of town, an answering machine clicked off, having recorded nothing more than an unsteady, half choked-up breath and the click of a phone hanging up, chock full of words unsaid, backtracking at the last second. 

On the other side of the country, Eddie, in his own careful way, kept himself just barely from pouring his heart out over the steady hum of Richie’s voicemail, stuck firmly between scared shitless and mind numbingly at ease with no idea which way was up. If either even was, if there wasn’t some _other_ up, something he was missing, something he was forgetting to remember. A direction neglected and unexplored. His hands shook, fully aware of the edge of the diving board under the curl of his toes, flexing downward under his weight. 

He’d never been very graceful on the jump. He feared this time wouldn’t be any different. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song mentioned (blink and you miss it):  
> Dedicated To The One I Love - The Mamas & The Papas


	22. INTERLUDE: (THE) ANSWERING MACHINE (IS A) CONFESSIONAL

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (mind the tags: a panic/asthma attack and sleep paralysis are depicted in this chapter, though dramatized and most likely not entirely accurate to life, be wary just in case!)

**29 NOVEMBER 1997**

**INTERSTATE 81 SOUTHBOUND**

**4:32 PM**

They were caught halfway between snow and rain halfway between Rochester and New York. The roaring car heater didn’t quite manage to penetrate the ice gripping Eddie’s rib cage. 

“They didn’t _hate_ you,” came Myra’s voice, distant though next to him in the passenger seat. She blew out a little disbelieving breath, putting a comforting hand on his knee. “It’s my dad and my brother, it’s their job to be protective. I’m their girl. You’re the first boy I’ve brought home to them, they’re just— putting out feelers.” 

“Your brother called me a _sissy,_ to my _face,_ Myra, I don’t think that’s feelers.”

The drive back was turning out to be nothing short of long, wet, and miserable, threatening snow but really only committing to slush. Eddie was worried it had dipped below freezing overnight and that a patch of black ice was laying in wait somewhere along the freeway to steal the traction from under their wheels and send them careening off the highway at any turn. His back was tight and aching as he hunched over the steering wheel. It had been a post-Thanksgiving dinner, as Myra had spent the actual holiday at her mother’s and Eddie at his aunts’. Snippets of the bone dry conversation over the chipped wooden table at her father’s house stuck to the inside of Eddie’s skull, the flavorless leftover turkey taste lingering in his mouth. The side remarks, the comments made under breath and around forks, and, perhaps worst of all, the knowing, penetrative glances stung him, hanging around his already congested headspace as he stared blankly out over the cold gray highway. 

Myra had certainly gotten her green eyes from her father, though the warmth behind hers certainly wasn’t in the genetics. 

“Garrett didn’t mean that, he just thinks he’s better than everyone else because he wins at fantasy football every year and owns a gun—”

“He owns a _gun?_ ” Eddie’s voice cracked, car hitting the rumble strips when he took his eyes off the road for a second to gawk at Myra, suddenly pale.

She nearly reached out for the wheel to correct for him, then put her hands up in defense. “Not to use on _people,_ its for rabbits and—”

“Does your dad have a gun too?”

“For hunting, yes, he has— he has some guns.” Her hand fell back to his leg, protective.

_“Some_ guns,” Eddie wheezed, taking a conscious deep breath. “Fuck, I’m in season now, aren’t I?” It was intended to come out as a joke, but the tremor in his voice betrayed some level genuine worry. 

“It was not that bad. And my mom loves you.” Myra squeezed his knee before moving her hand up to his arm, trying desperately to be reassuring. 

It felt more like pity. Eddie took another slow breath, not daring to look away from the road again. Not wanting to think about the way Myra’s mother seemed to look at him more like an interesting zoo animal than a person. If she loved him, she loved him like one might love a toy dog. A fitting fuzzy companion for her daughter. “Tell me your mom has a bigger gun than your dad, please.”

She paused for a beat too long and Eddie risked glancing at her again out of the corner of his vision, eyes wide. She nibbled worriedly on a nail, voice hushed when she finally spoke up. “She’s a vegetarian, actually. Never really liked the hunting thing.”

“Okay,” Eddie said, curtly, focusing on the road. “I’ll update my will as soon as we get home.”

“You have a _will?”_

Eddie took a half second to consider that he was maybe the only freshly-22 year old on the planet to which that phrase didn’t apply as a joke.

“I— have a draft,” he sighed, half exasperated but honest. This wasn’t what he’d wanted to talk about, but then again, the spectacular failure that had been dinner was looping on repeat in his mind and a distraction from it, any distraction, was somewhat welcome. 

“Do you even own enough— enough stuff to have a will?” 

“I don’t _know,_ but I just paid off this car and I don’t want it to go to my mom, she doesn’t even drive, it would just— sit on the street.”

“Who's— who gets the car in your will?” Myra sounded genuinely curious, if not a little patronizing. 

Eddie felt his cheeks warm. Started out as a joke, now here he was, going into the details of the sad little “will” drafted in a spiral notebook at home. Just the sort of thing weird, paranoid, _sissy_ Eddie Kasprbak kept himself up at night fretting over. His voice lost its bite when he prattled on. “I— just kinda put it down as ‘charity’? I’m hoping when I actually get a lawyer in on it he can like. Define that a little better for me. Type it up on legal paper and everything.” 

Myra was silent again and Eddie sighed. She was being kind in not saying anything to that. 

“Forget the will, my point is that I can tell my days are numbered after that fiasco.” 

“They’re not going to kill you and they don’t hate you. I wouldn’t even venture to call that a _fiasco_ , you’re catastrophizing.” 

God, he fucking hated that word. “I’m really not.” 

“It wasn’t that bad, baby.”

Eddie knew he had it in him not to cringe. He did not cringe. He was a levelheaded, mature, grown, twenty-something man, and he could keep himself still and not cringe at a _baby_ here or a _sweetie_ there. He learned early on he just wasn’t really a pet name person, but he knew Myra was just trying to help cool him off. Intending to comfort him. Trying to settle him with ahand on his leg (even if that made him antsy when he drove). Even if he was feeling touchy at the moment and it wasn’t entirely welcome. She didn’t know any better though, because he didn’t _tell_ her it made him antsy and prickly, so she was just doing what she felt was the right thing. That he couldn’t blame her for. “It certainly wasn’t good,” he sighed, resigned. 

Dull highway sounds filled the car for a moment. It was quiet enough for Eddie to pick up the howl of the wind outside, the rush of it as it dragged across the hood and along the windows, the sound of the tires chewing up the rainsnow slick pavement. The silence was almost relaxing for the few moments it lasted. 

“I still haven’t met your mother.” 

It wasn’t a whiplash change of subject, acceptably tangential, but it was maybe the last thing Eddie wanted brought up. His mouth went dry. Did she really think bringing _that_ up was going to make anything better? 

Despite having not wanted to, against what once felt like better judgement, Eddie had decided to stick around the apartment in Queens for his senior year. Stay home with Mom. Commute. It would save him money, it would save him a certain amount of stress and guilt and any number of things. Perhaps most regretfully, he’d had to quit at the auto shop, which made coming home from his boring school office job and the monotonous hours of homework at the kitchen table that much more draining. But he didn’t have the energy to keep up the farce and didn’t have the time for the job. 

Some fights just weren’t worth it anymore. 

“You know there’s a reason you haven’t,” Eddie said, hoping Myra would accept that as that. Again. Honestly, he’d expected her to press the issue much earlier. Eddie swallowed, thinking of the long list of excuses he’d exhausted over the past several months when it came to avoiding bringing Myra home. Maybe it was time she finally got fed up with his aversion of the topic. They’d been dating close to a year and Eddie lived close to campus. It was expected of him by now. A lot was expected of him that Myra, generously enough, let slide.

Eddie, when it came to the situation with his mother, was very careful in doling out the most delicate information. For the most part, his friends at college knew her as merely overprotective due to his being an only child. Closer friends, mostly Julie, now Myra, understood it had something to do with his father. And Eddie had, vaguely and sparsely, touched on some of the more difficult topics with his girlfriend. Mentioned her fibbing here and there about his being unwell, well intentioned lies. White lies in Myra’s eyes, severity diminished by the offhanded way he talked about it. He’d never had to explain the inhaler he’d started carrying again in his backpack, and didn’t plan to. Was, in fact, hoping that he’d wean himself off once again and not ever _have_ to explain it. Was hoping Myra wouldn’t see through the farce and start to understand how deep it truly ran. 

“Eddie,” Myra said, “she’s your mother. You’ve been driving up to school every day to go to class and to go to work and to see me, but you hardly even stay over because you live with her. Would it really be that bad for me to drop by one night for dinner or something? Maybe so she can actually put a face to a name?” 

He knew, the moment he’d realized that the thing between him and Myra extended beyond their chaste quiet nights in the library, that with time, this would become inevitable. Myra was going to have to meet Sonia if they were to carry on with the whole thing. The star Eddie was trying desperately to gravitate toward was going to have to fall victim to the pull of the sun he’d been stuck orbiting for so much longer. What kind of fucked up universe model was this, anyway? Maybe he was the moon? He wasn’t sure. But he didn’t like the supernova this was surely going to be.

Eddie did the wrong thing and pictured it, if only for a moment, pictured him opening the front door for Myra, her maybe commenting on how cute the little stained glass pane on the upper quarter of the door was, how eclectic the little old building looked from the outside, pictured her crossing the threshold and him behind her, cowering over her shoulder, knowing things were about to break bad, the knock-off tiffany lamp above the shabby metal kitchen table the only light on in the apartment, strung above the four modest chairs like a bare bulb in a spy movie, an intimidation and interrogation tactic, and Sonia, looming half in shadow in one of the chairs, hands folded placidly on the table, still, patient, much like a tiger in the tall grass waiting for a window to pounce on the unsuspecting pair of antelopes traipsing ignorantly past—

His ears began to ring. 

“I have to pull over,” Eddie said abruptly, feeling color draining from his face. His stomach had started to sour, his throat too scratchy for comfort, pulse elevated. 

“What?” 

Eddie cleared his throat roughly. “I’m pulling over.” He switched on his blinker and started to drift toward some exit, marked only with a number, no town or street name. His inhaler was in his backpack, his backpack was in the trunk, he couldn’t get to it unless they fully stopped. Knowing this was going to end badly, Eddie wanted the car firmly in park before things fully settled into his brain and effectively into his lungs, before the reality of it hit him and an oncoming car did the same to his Civic. 

Then something wonderful happened. 

On the radio, a woman laughed. Two crisp notes, a slide down the neck of an electric guitar. 

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie said, feeling energy prickle up his back, raising the hair on his forearms when the first guitar riff hit. “Oh, fuck, wait, I love this song.”

_(Dark in the city, night is a wire)_

He didn’t need to slow down, slowing down was going to fuck him over. He needed to go faster. His nervous energy twisted around backwards, and Eddie banked off onto the exit. Myra yelped in the passenger seat beside him. He hardly heard it. 

“Eddie, where are you _going?”_

He sort of waved her off, finding them on some off-exit road in some off-exit town, a white dusted parking lot in front of a squat little church the first thing to catch his eye. A strange moment of clarity pulled him toward it like gravity, tires clinging to the friction of the road as the snow started to pick up, fat flakes melting as they struck the warm windshield. “Are you buckled in?” 

“ _What_ are you—” 

Eddie reached over and yanked on the cross strap of Myra’s seatbelt just to double check, finding it secure, and swung the car into the parking lot. Empty, plenty big enough, the pavement felt just slick enough without a dangerous loss of friction. He hadn’t done this lately, not since high school, not since Greta insisted _he_ do it just in case they crashed so she wouldn’t be blamed for wrecking her dad’s car, not since he’d been far enough from New York to even find a remotely empty parking lot. Fingers buzzing, he cranked the volume a few notches, comforted by the heavy blanket of sound pumping from the old speakers in the door and the dashboard. “You might wanna hold on,” Eddie said, the smile quick and sudden and bold, evident in his voice, panic evident in Myra’s when she asked again what the hell he was doing. He gave her one crazy little look before shifting into first gear and throwing the wheel harshly to the right. 

He floored the accelerator right as the first chorus hit, feeling a rush hit the back of his brain. Myra screamed, scrabbling at his arm, and Eddie screamed too, elated, as the back of the car started to swing out in a wide arc. He yanked the hand brake and they skid, drifting smoothly across the snow dusted parking lot. Centripetal force pitched Myra against his side, Eddie’s shoulder braced against the driver’s side door, the gray image of the evening blurring outside the windows. The sound was _phenomenal,_ the screeching rubber, the music, the screeching Myra, Eddie’s laughter. He whooped, uncaring for a second, switching his feet to keep the momentum going.

They wheeled around twice, three times, Myra screaming her head off and Eddie just as loud, wishing he had a free hand to crank up the radio, feeling half like he was flying. Her nails dug little half moons into the meat of his bicep. He felt her tuck her head against his arm, unable to watch. 

He knew the car wouldn’t roll, he knew they wouldn’t crash, but fuck, just the possibility of it was a savage kind of exciting. In control of being out of it, right where he needed to be. Eddie couldn’t believe that a moment ago he was considering stopping on the side of the highway to dig his inhaler out of his backpack, couldn't believe how strong his voice was as he screamed again just for the fun of it, drowning out Myra’s much more terrified caterwaul. 

The stop was a little jerkier, out of practice, Eddie feeling a little whiplash in his neck when he finally wrangled the car into full submission and seated her 90 degrees across a barely visible parking spot. He was panting, but his chest felt open, clear, not even the stuffy heat of the cabin managing to suffocate him. The blaring radio seemed quiet under the roar of blood in his ears, heart thrumming in overdrive. Myra lifted her head once they’d fully stopped, looking remarkably like a ruffled ostrich, her chin tucked firmly down into her white turtleneck, usually tidy hair out of place around her head, shrinking back into the seat with both arms wrapped tightly around one of Eddie’s. She didn’t say anything for a moment, struck silent and seemingly paralyzed as she stared out the windshield, but when her disbelieving eyes slid over to Eddie’s, he lurched across the console to kiss her.

He was burning up, riding a high, diving in with more ferocity and enthusiasm than he could rightfully have claimed to have kissed her with before. Blame the adrenaline on the donuts, blame the donuts on Duran Duran. He could have crawled across the seat to tackle her right there if she’d let him, but Myra gathered her bearings quickly. Her hands bunched in his jacket for only a second, then flattened out to shove at him. Their lips unsealed with a smack and Eddie sucked in a breath.

“Eddie Kaspbrak, what the _hell’s_ gotten into you?” 

Eddie thumped back into his own seat, still grinning like a madman. He tipped his head back for a moment, eyes closed, letting the last peals of electricity run their course. Sighed out in a rush. When he opened his eyes, Myra was staring at him as if he’d grown a second head, her cheeks rosy even under her pink Maybelline blush. He sighed again, exhilarated to have lungs full of air to waste, and rested his hands back on the wheel. “You’ve never done donuts before?” 

“Were you _trying_ to kill us?” 

“I thought I was actually showing my girlfriend a good time.” 

She looked at him for a moment as if she didn’t recognize him. 

_Good,_ Eddie thought, savagely. _So there is still part of me she doesn’t know._

Myra didn’t smile, although she looked like she was fighting it. Her eyes scanned him, face still flushed with color, as she adjusted herself in her seat. She looked away. Out the windshield, up at the car ceiling. “If I’d known I had to go to those lengths to get you to kiss me like that—”

“You would have never agreed to go on that first date with me?” 

Her gaze snapped back to him and Eddie felt rushed again with a strange confidence. She wet her lips and he shifted the gears again, slowly getting the car rolling back out toward the street. He felt ready for the highway again, ready to finish out the drive. 

Myra’s voice was hushed. Eddie turned the radio down a few notches for her. “No,” she admitted, huffy. Eddie’s smile didn’t falter. This was new, he thought. This felt different. This felt good. “I didn’t like that,” she clarified, struggling to remain stern. “Don’t you _ever_ do that again, Eddie, I swear to god I almost had a heart attack.” 

“No more kissing, got it.” She smacked his arm for that and he snickered, peeking out of the corner of her eye to find her smile just barely breaking through despite her best efforts.

“That’s not what I meant, you know what I mean.” 

“Oh the _donuts?_ I can do more than that, watch—” 

This time when she shrieked, it broke into a laugh, her hands scrabbling on his arm again when he threatened to throw the wheel. 

“I’m just preparing you now, Myra.” He pulled back out onto the street, looking right, left, right, left, right, following the signs for the entrance ramp back onto the highway. “You think _that_ was a heart attack, just wait until you meet my mother.”

**29 NOVEMBER 1997**

**LOS ANGELES**

**6:57 PM**

Muffled music drifted from behind the bathroom door, a sliver of colored light streaking into the dim living room. Richie tossed his keys onto the coffee table and made a beeline for the glow, bracing his shoulder against the doorframe to knock. “Sandra Dee, may I come in?” 

Richie heard the bathwater shift as if she jumped, not expecting him, before her voice drifted out, tinted with a hint of a laugh. “Yeah, I’m in the bath but— yeah, why not. Nothing you haven’t seen, yada yada.” 

His fingers buzzed as he slipped through the door, golden retriever happy, as always, just to see her. She had her battery operated radio set up on the edge of the sink, her lava lamp plugged in where her hair dryer usually was and set on the floor. Sandy’s hair was piled up on top of her head, dry save the stray strands that fell out of the hair tie and adorned her neck, skin shimmering in the pinkish light. She corralled a little drift of bubbles up over her chest, her smile soft up at him. “Hi, handsome. How was work?” 

He stood in the doorframe for only a moment, half in awe, before a smile cracked his expression and he shut the door behind him, toeing off his shoes. “I have news, I actually have really really good news.” 

She made room for him to sit on the edge of the tub as he padded over. Sandy’s start of a reply turned into a squeal when Richie stepped directly into the bathtub, socks and all. _“Richie—”_ Her head tipped back and she laughed, the sound of it ringing around the tiny bathroom as he tried to gather his legs under him to sit down, feet on either side of her knees, hand braced on the wall of the shower stall. “What’s gotten into you now?” 

“Just getting comfortable, don’t mind me.” 

He loved it when she cackled like that. Sometimes, if he was lucky, he could get a snort out of her. Sandy tried to help him down, skin slick against his arm as she helped him sink down half in her lap, knees bunched up, smile broad. “You’re _ridiculous.”_

He leaned forward to kiss her forehead, cupping her cheeks. “You wouldn’t like me if I wasn’t. You have a type.” 

“What’s your news?” she asked, reaching up with wet hands to fluff up his hair.

“Oh,” he said, genuinely having forgotten for a moment, mind kicking back up into high gear. “Darling, you wouldn’t believe it, not if you _saw_ it not if it came up and spanked you on the behind,” he started, slipping slightly transatlantic for a moment. Her eyes widened, dark and deep and imploring, and as cool as he wanted to play it, Richie’s eagerness tinted his tone. “I got a gig,” he said, voice back to own, colored with unabashed excitement he wanted to hold down but couldn’t. “Like an actual _gig._ Like I’m getting paid in more than exposure gig.” 

Sandy had been the one to talk him into it at first. Richie had wanted to pursue radio, had actually gotten a measly handful of cash here and there doing voice work for a local commercial or two after a first bone-dry six months in LA, but it was going nowhere fast. He’d wanted to stick to something that didn’t involve his voice being attached to his regrettable face, but Sandy’s encouragement (and her boss’s, having witnessed him more than once making unlikely friends at the bar during Sandy’s shifts, blessing) had gotten him up on stage for an open mic the first time.

He’d honestly thought he was going to freeze. Was going to be one more ten minute segment in amateur hour, mostly ignored or forgotten nearly immediately by the patrons of the bar, stammering and awkward. 

But, by some miracle, they’d laughed. By some miracle Richie hadn’t been plagued by late-onset stage fright, quite the opposite. It felt, for ten minutes, something like flourishing. 

He’d figured it was beginner’s luck, figured the adrenaline rush of being on stage for the first time gave him a one shot blessing, but Sandy coaxed him to clamber back up to the mic the next week. The week after that, the bar owner asked if he wanted fifteen minutes the next time, a reserved place in the lineup. Then if he wanted a regular slot each week, outside of the open mic, fifteen to twenty minutes, in hopes of bringing in a fresher, younger crowd to the bar. No pay, but Richie didn’t mind much. Nothing wrong with a hobby, and there was something overtly appealing about a hobby involving having eyes and ears on him once a week, having his friends and then some as a live audience. 

Richie, for maybe the very first time, felt like he was good at something intrinsically. A natural. 

Javier brought in a couple coworkers from the bakery one night. Ned a couple friends here and there. Randy once convinced an entire house party, almost entirely drunk or high already, to follow him to the bar for Richie’s segment. Sandy earned more tips that night than she had the entire previous week. The audience kept laughing, growing, and Richie found himself doing the same. 

He hadn’t expected it to go anywhere, not really. Along the line he’d been told time and time again he should try standup, he was a natural storyteller, he was enigmatic, what have you, but he’d never expected the reception he earned once he finally bucked up and gave it a shot. Sandy helped him draft new material, all small-time notebook stuff, nothing major, but here he was.

Gig. _Paid._ Golly fucking gee, look at the stupid nerdy kid with the constantly broken coke-bottle glasses who’d wanted to be a fucking _ventriloquist,_ for fucks sake. Richie Tozier: Live.

Didn’t have to throw his voice and pretend it wasn’t him speaking now. _Him_ speaking was the whole point. 

Sandy looked elated, water slopping over the side of the tub as she sat up, properly cupping his face. “What? Richie— oh my god, congratulations!” She pulled him into a wet hug and Richie laughed too, feeling her soak through his sweaty Blockbuster polo as he squeezed her back. “When, where?” She pulled back to look him over, beaming. “And how, actually, didn’t you just come straight from work?” 

“This guy fucking sought me out,” he said, cheeks sore from smiling. “Apparently his daughter saw me once at your bar and he came last week to see for himself and found out from your boss where I worked, he just opened a little club near the pier and needs ‘fresh faces’.” 

“And he wants your face?”  
He could have screamed. He’d been trying this whole time not to count on anything, but, fuck, even Sandy looked excited, looked proud. He couldn’t help but bubble over, nearly laughing in disbelief. “He wants my face!” 

Sandy kissed him and Richie wanted to dissolve into the warm bathwater like an alkaseltzer tab. He probably could have, if she’d hung onto the kiss for a second longer. “It’s a good face,” she said, pulling back, eyelashes low, and Richie actually blushed. “What did I tell you?” 

“You should be my manager,” he said, half against her mouth, chasing another kiss. He clumsily worked himself into a kneeling position to fit over her better, settling down and only soaking his clothes further, unable to care. “I’ll be yours, I’ll use mine silver tongue to talk every director in Hollywood into casting you.” She sank her slender fingers into the back of his hair, rivulets of water slicking down the back of his neck into the collar of his shirt, and his chest swelled. It made him shiver, she always made him shiver like this. “I’m never doubting your advice ever again.” 

“Big promises.” Sandy sank her teeth gently into his bottom lip and Richie lost his footing, slipping sideways into the water next to her. She screamed then laughed and Richie spat out soapy water, slipping a hand under the small of her back and rolling her toward him, their shoulders pressing into the wall of the tub as he held her against himself, free arm braced against the floor to keep them steady. 

“Swear on my life.”

She reached up to take his glasses off and he nearly whined, wanting to look at her longer under the warm colored glow of the lava lamp, the water sending waves of color across her shimmering skin. Everything went blurry and nondescript, and Richie felt heat race all the way down to his toes when she kissed him again. “I told you you’re going somewhere.” 

When she said it, he believed it. He wanted it. As long as she came with him. 

**20 DECEMBER, 1997**

**QUEENS, NEW YORK**

**6:37 PM**

It was going well. 

Maybe that was the worst part. 

Eddie Kaspbrak brought a girl home to the den of the beast, trespassed directly on Sonia’s turf both physically and metaphorically, and it was going _well_. 

He had some serious unpacking to do on why the hell this was disheartening, but he couldn’t bring himself to examine it too closely sitting between them at the dinner table with his mother tittering at whatever Myra had just said. He wasn’t sure. His brain was crisping like a marshmallow held too close to the campfire. It was either going to catch fire or start dripping sugar goo out of his ears within the next ten minutes. 

They’d decided Christmas was too heavy for a first meeting, and Eddie would be back in New Jersey again like last year, so the first night of Christmas break Myra was to stay for dinner. The topic of her potentially staying the night had been very delicately tiptoed around, something Eddie was increasingly nervous about the longer they sat at the table. Dinner was over. Sun was already down. 

_If she starts driving now she won’t get home until 12:04, past midnight. Not entirely unreasonable, but not ideal._

Eddie knew exactly what he had expected. He had carefully gone over the disaster scenario countless times in the past month, he was overly familiar with it:

_Eddie and Myra would enter the apartment. Sonia would greet them with all the warmth of an October rainstorm in Maine. They would sit for dinner as if it was their last meal. Sonia would ask entirely too many questions, increasingly invasive as they went. Would talk about Eddie, much too personal stories for the dinner table, much too red flag-raising for the girlfriend he’d yet to celebrate a one year anniversary with. Eddie would be mostly quiet, would let the thing run its course, Myra would squirm under the interrogation and awkwardness and would do her best, sneaking Eddie increasingly worried and panicked glances as the night went on. Eddie would return a look of understanding with an underlying_ I told you so. _Myra would eventually, well before the window during which driving straight to Rochester closed, stand up and make a transparent excuse to leave. Eddie would let her go. Eddie would go through the motions of Christmas again, would carefully avoid any mention of girls at dinner. Myra would not call. It would be crushing at first, it would be a loss worthy of mourning, as Myra had become a comforting constant in Eddie’s life, her company something he, admittedly, looked forward to. But everything came to its own end eventually. They would return to school for their last semester. She would pass him once or twice before graduation on campus and they would avoid eye contact. And maybe, (this was farfetched and perhaps a little pathetic,) he would see her in passing sometime well into their adulthood, when Eddie is still single and still living with his mother and maybe balding, and Myra is out with her fiancé, who is tall. They would never see each other again._

Yet, here they were. 6:38 now. Eddie was fretting over the potential sleeping arrangements, increasingly sick to his stomach. No way would Myra be allowed to bunk with him, not under Sonia’s roof. His stomach turned at the very idea of her so much as getting a glimpse of his painfully childish bedroom. Even if he had to take the couch, she’d be up there alone with all his things, up in the room his mother put together for him, a private space, though one that was never entirely his. Eddie didn’t want her there.

He dared drag his attention back to the kitchen table, back to earth. They’d finished eating long ago, dry chicken seasoned only with salt and pepper, cranberries. Eddie’s glass of milk was still full. Myra was talking about her major, Sonia was engaged, hands resting lightly on the table. The tiny diamond his father had bought her with a month’s worth of his measly salary in 1968 glinted on her left hand.

“You sound like a natural-born homemaker. Interior design?” 

“Yes ma’am.”

This was an interview, Eddie realized. Maybe that was how it went with all parents meeting their children’s suitors, Eddie wasn’t sure, but if this was out of the ordinary, Sonia was doing nothing to hide it. It would have been obvious anyway even if she’d tried. 

There was a fly buzzing around the bulb of the light above the table. Eddie thought about getting up to get the fly swatter, but simply didn’t have the energy. Was glued to his chair, watching the two of them get on like old friends. 

“My poor Eddie’s hopeless in that department,” Sonia said, and Eddie snapped to attention at the sound of his name. “He needs someone to take care of those kinds of things.” 

_Take care of him,_ Eddie could practically hear. He wanted to argue that point but didn’t know how. He’d survived three years of college by himself. He was doing okay, even if he burned dinner in the microwave sometimes. He was competent. 

“Oh, I know, I’ve seen him do laundry. It’s abysmal.” Myra laughed good naturedly. 

Eddie’s face warmed at that. He was _competent._ Dare he say self-sufficient. He was a little clumsy, maybe, a little lost on some things still, sure, but he wasn’t _helpless._ He tried to mentally list off all the things he’d learned at the garage that summer, but his memory seemed to fail him. What was the first step in changing a tire, do you get the lug nuts off first or jack it up? 

Sonia laughed at that too. Under the table, Myra placed a hand on Eddie’s knee, and he just barely kept himself from jumping. 

“I just do it for him now that he’s home, it’s much better than him ruining all his clothes and having to go out and buy more. He’s sensitive to those synthetic textiles they’re putting in everything now, it’s getting harder and harder to find plain cotton anymore.” 

“I’d do it for him at school if he let me,” Myra said, trying to bring Eddie back into the conversation. She lifted her hand from his leg to tuck a lock of hair behind his ear, one that hadn’t felt out of place to begin with, and he felt his face lose a little color. She was touching him in the open like that, in front of his mother, laying a hand on her dear son in a way that suggested familiarity beyond friendship, something he felt would never fly. 

Yet Sonia didn’t miss a beat, even if her eyes caught a certain glint. “He can be stubborn like that.” She looked at Eddie so fondly then, grey eyes soft and round behind her glasses which got thicker and thicker with age, as if looking at a puppy who’d just had an accident on the kitchen floor. He felt his shoulders tighten, draw together. “You’ll wear him down, every man has a weakness for a woman who knows her way around the house.” She smiled, and Eddie felt his pulse in his left temple. “And you need all the help you can get, don’t you, Eddie-bear?” 

Eddie closed his eyes, feeling just very slightly like the world was ending. 

Myra perked up immediately beside him. 

_6:41, she should really really get going—_

_“Eddie-bear?”_ she sounded delighted.

_Please, for the love of GOD fucking leave now._

“That’s so _sweet,”_ Myra said, nudging Eddie’s shoulder and forcing him to crack an artificial smile. All eyes were on him and his reddening face, his stomach sinking, the tough chicken like a rock in his gut.

This was normal, was sweet, in some universe. In some place Eddie never belonged to. In a place where it was funny and heartwarming for a mother and a girlfriend to bond over a certain familiarity with a boy they both loved, where an embarrassing pet name from mother was just that. 

But Eddie lived in a place where it was terrifying, sickening, maybe and yet, perhaps a little heartbreakingly, inevitable. 

It was 7:02 before they finally left the dinner table, Myra offering to help with the dishes and Sonia beaming ear to ear at that. Eddie retreated, tail between legs, and went upstairs to stuff anything remotely personal or embarrassing away in his closet, praying Myra simply wouldn’t get nosy and look there anyway. He knew she wouldn’t, knew there was no reason to worry over it, but he’d needed to. For his own sake. 

The license plates above the closet betrayed a hobby that was going to have to fall to the wayside, the books stacked beside the nightstand told stories Eddie once believed, the shoebox in the closet held the photos he’d stored carefully away when he’d moved out of his last apartment, too valuable and private and _his_ to display on the walls of this room that never quite felt like home. 

Before he properly set up on the couch, anxious and unable to keep still, his mother visited to kiss him on the forehead and wish him a sweet dreams. “I don’t think I gave you enough credit when you first told me about her, sweetie, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not ready to give you up just yet, but I think in time she could learn how to take care of you properly if something ever happens to me.” Eddie, half horrified, noticed her eyes were growing misty in the living room lamplight. “I like her, I really do.”

And the next morning, Eddie practically swaying on the stoop from exhaustion after no sleep and an extremely chaste, tight-lipped kiss goodbye, “I really don’t see what’s so bad about her, Eddie,” said Myra. She smiled at him, so warm, so well intentioned, something that should have made him smile back but only broke his heart bit by bit. “She cares a lot about you. I think I see why it took you so long to introduce her to me, you two really have something special between you.” 

**25 FEBRUARY 1998**

**LOS ANGELES**

**12:32 PM**

Richie bounced on his toes at the entrance to LAX, scanning frantically over heads. Bill shouldn’t be hard to spot, but blind with excitement, Richie nearly missed him. 

“Rich!” came his voice, sudden and clear and right there, and Richie turned in time to see Bill rush at him, his poor battered suitcase clattering behind him. Richie opened his arms just in time to be knocked back a full foot, chest near bursting as Bill arched back to lift him off his feet. If they hadn’t been surrounded by droves of other travelers, Richie would have fully wrapped his legs around his waist and kissed the top of his head. Bill set him back down after a moment, face the same wonderful and dearly missed Bill Denbrough face, bright and elated. 

“Billy Goddamn Denbrough, in the flesh,” Richie said, still in half awe. His eyes widened, a laugh jumping out of his chest. “What the fuck, what happened?” 

Bill glanced behind himself. “What happened where?” 

Richie went up on his toes to scrub at Bill’s hair, loose, still straight and scraggly but chopped unevenly up to his jaw. “You killed Wendy! Look at this mop!”

“Ah, Jesus, it was time,” Bill admitted, raking a hand through it. “Look at you, what the fuck—” 

Someone honked behind Richie and he jumped, forgetting his car was parked in what was technically a line that needed to move. “Shit, let me get your bag.” 

“So this is the chick magnet convertible you told me so much about?” 

“Yep, had her about two months now, she’s a fuckin charmer, huh?” He slung Bill’s bag into the cramped backseat and hopped over the passenger side door, sliding over to the driver’s seat. 

Bill stepped in as well, drumming on the dashboard as Richie turned the key. “It’s fucking hideous, I love it. Suits you, Rich.” 

“I wanted a sexy red convertible, but with my budget, I could only go for one of the three.” 

“And you picked convertible, I see.” 

“You fucking know I did. Strap in, good buddy, we’ve got a hell of a weekend ahead of us.” Richie reached over to pat Bill’s chest as he fussed with the seatbelt. 

Richie peeled out of the pick up line and headed for the highway, Bill whooping when the wind caught in their hair. 

Bill immediately adored Sandy’s little slice of tourist trap heaven bar. The _atmosphere,_ he insisted, was fantastic. He was particularly fond of the little novelty string lights above the bar, palm trees and pineapples. Sandy was swamped, it was a Friday and Richie was proud to admit that he had, to some degree, helped wrangled a fresh crowd of new regulars into the bar even on nights he wasn’t performing. While he was dying to introduce Sandy to him, he was glad to have a second to catch up with Bill while she ran drinks. 

And boy, did they have catching up to do. 

Richie nearly choked on his beer. _“Published?”_

Looking half sheepish and half bursting with pride, nodded, leaning back easily on his stool. “In the process of it and in the process of dropping the fuck out of that godforsaken writing class. I’ll still graduate, thank god, but—”

“Hold on hold on— fuck graduating, man, you’re getting a novel published? Like right now?” 

“This year, yup.”

“Not like a short story in a magazine kind of thing like last time, right, this is like the whole shebang like editors and shit like— like you’re gonna sell a whole ass book all bound and shit—”

“Yeah, Richie,” Bill said, laughing like it was no big deal, humble, eyes betraying some pride, “whole shebang.”

“I’m gonna fucking— I’m gonna buy the whole place a round in your honor, Mr. Published Fucking Author, hold on—” 

Richie made to stand up and Bill yanked him down by the sleeve of his flannel. “No you fucking won’t, this place is packed—” 

“No they like me here, trust me—” 

Richie burst out laughing when Bill easily tossed an arm around him and wrestled him easily into a headlock. “You’re not as scrawny as you used to be, Trashmouth, have you been working out?” 

“Ask your mother about her new cardio routine and you tell me,” Richie said, and Bill nearly toppled his stool manhandling him again. 

“Hey!” he barked, and Bill cracked up. Richie slipped out of his grip and clambered around behind him, shaking his broad shoulders until Bill nearly slipped off the stool. “Somebody get this man a shot from the top shelf, he’s about to be a fucking published writer, this is Buh-Buh-Buh- _Bill_ Denbrough, that’s D-E-N-B-R-”

Bill tried frantically to clap a hand over his mouth, beside himself cracking up, but Richie only grew louder, going up on his toes to set his chin on top of Bill’s head to yell over the bar. 

_“Sandra,_ darling, get yourself a drink on me, we’re celebrating tonight!” 

When Richie was drunk enough, he really didn’t mind at all how god awful his laugh sounded when he really got going. Hyenas weren’t so bad, maybe, said the third or fourth round. 

Bill was originally supposed to crash on the couch, but they’d stumbled back to Richie’s place arm in arm and hadn’t let go of each other until their backs hit Richie’s mattress. Sandy had had to peel him off of her, wanting one more goodbye kiss, 

_(one more, just one more, one more, quick, while Bill’s not looking)_

and had insisted Richie get himself and his friend home safe instead, promising they could meet more formally when she wasn’t up to her nose busy and had time to babysit their goofball asses. She sent them packing with a tender smile on her face, the pair of them singing the tail end of whatever Queen song had been blaring in the bar when Sandy finally decided it was time they go. 

“Why’s your— yourbed’s on the fuckin floor, dude,” Bill wheezed, Richie snickering as he rolled to lay on top of him. They’d laid like this countless times as kids, countless more when Richie stayed over at Bill’s horrible den of a college apartment with lawn chairs instead of a couch and one bed in the whole place. It was only natural, by then, for them to sleep stacked like sardines. 

“Imeantogetaframe,” Richie mumbled directly into Bill’s shirt, which smelled like the vodka someone spilled on him, but mostly like Bill. Delirious, Richie picked up his head and sniffed, setting his chin on Bill’s sternum, glasses off-kilter. “Never gotround to it.” 

Bill snickered and it set Richie off again, sure Ned would come in in a moment and beg them to be quiet. He had no earthly idea what time it was. Vaguely late. 

“Hey heh—” Richie patted Bill’s face to capture his focus again once the giggles died down. “Quesion.” 

“Go.” 

“Haveyou ever donecoke and had sex?” 

“Done _what?”_

He focused on clarifying. “Coke, then boned,” he said, slowly, scientifically. 

They laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it, then Richie pawed again at Bill’s face. 

“No, no, wait, Rich,” he said, bodily shifting Richie to settle him. “Fuckyougot heavy, dude, buwait— whos doin cocaine I hear?” There was something big brotherly in the way he said it, something curious and almost proud. An _ah, caught up, finally, pal?_

Richie lifted a shoulder, uncoordinated. “Snotsobad.” 

“Snot,” Bill agreed breathily, half caught in a laugh. “No, fucker, Idonfuck on coke.” 

_“No?”_ Richie whined. 

Bill shook his head, eyes closed. “Nope. Ionlydid it to like— focus.” 

_“Alone?”_

“Yep.” 

Richie groaned loud enough that Bill winced, shushing him frantically and making them both snicker again. “Fuck, youre missingout. Oh, my _god,_ man. What the point? Whodoes coke _alone?_ Gotta try it with company man, _wow—”_

“Aw, somebody loveshis girlfriend, huh?” 

“Cretin,” Richie protested, yelping when Bill tossed him over to the side and nearly sent him spilling to the floor. They took a full minute to recover from that, Bill dragging him back onto the bed like a half drowned man cast off the side of a ship, uncaring by then about the laughing racket they were stirring from Richie’s tiny little pantry of a bedroom. 

“Heyhey,” Richie said again, when they found their way back to semi-coherent language. “Doynot stutterwhen you’re drunk?” 

“What?” 

“Didn’t stutter, Billiam,” he insisted. “Your stutter.” 

“Gone,” Bill said, waving a hand like it was magic.

_“No,”_ Richie insisted, adjusting himself to squeeze in next to Bill’s side. He poked at his chest. “You do. Stutter. Doesn’t work like that.” 

“It’sgone, _gone_ gone, I dunno why,” Bill said, and he sounded relieved. Genuinely. “M’not gonna questionit, man, ‘M happy bout it. Goodriddance. Gift horse, mouth, whatever.” 

Richie drummed on Bill’s chest, something about that sounding a little too uncanny, but he couldn’t focus long enough to question it. After thinking it over as much as his brain, which had become nothing more a sponge for rum at some point in the evening, he threw an arm out somewhere, he didn’t care where. “C’est la vie, baby.” 

“Hey,” Bill said, slipping an arm under Richie’s back and tugging him roughly to his side, squeezing him. “Mikey.”

“No,” Richie said, a little hurt. “Richie.”

“No, didyou hear bout Mikey?” Bill’s voice cracked slightly. 

“Nuhuh.”

“Wansago back to Maine, man.” 

Richie snickered. “Main man. He patted Bill somewhere, most likely his arm. “Main man Mikey,” he said, singsong. 

“No, no, whenegraduates? Follow me. Richie.” 

Richie grunted, half paying attention. He’d grown tired across the change of subjects. 

“Rich, back to D— back to D— _D—”_

“Shit, jinxed it.” Richie wheezed, shaking it off briefly before tucking his face resolutely into the side of Bill’s neck. “Stutter’sb— wait.” He picked his head up, glasses finally falling off and disappearing immediately into the mess they’d made of the sheets. 

It wasn’t quite clarity, that struck him, but it was cold, it was a disruption of the otherwise perfect night. “Back to _Derry?”_

**2 MAY 1998**

**ALBANY, NEW YORK**

**10:12 PM**

Stanley’s phone rang. He set aside his pack of Oreos to pick it up, unable to declare that it was in fact Stan Uris speaking thank you very much before Eddie’s voice rushed over him. 

“Have you and Patty had sex?” Said in one breath, almost one word, inevitably after what must have been a half hour of pacing around working up the gall to ask. 

Stanley had known Eddie for a very long time. Stanley was very accustomed to a strange opening line to any given phone call, given his friend group. Especially given his friend Eddie. But this one managed to at least give him pause. He blinked, glancing out his window as if to search for a remotely normal way to respond to that out of pocket question. 

“Eddie, I do think you could stand to lead up to things a bit now and then. Subtlety goes far, you know.” Stanley laid back on his bed, sticking his finger through the coil of the phone cord, cautiously flicking a cookie crumb off one finger. 

Eddie breathed out hard on the other line. “I’m sorry,” Eddie said, followed by a crunchy rustling sort of sound, “I had to ask.” 

Did he? Stanley, truly, thought he simply did _not_ have to ask, but he figured he may as well give Eddie a chance to explain himself before he jumped to any conclusions. Patience had, as of late, worked best with him. “May I ask why? Because as close as we are, I really doubt this is genuine interest in my sex life.” 

Eddie paused for a moment. Stan checked his watch. It felt as if he’d been waiting a little over ten years for this conversation. Then again, Eddie had began it many times from a staggering array of different starting points and never quite finished it. It all lead back to a similar point in the end, but they’d never actually made it there. 

“Myra and I haven’t—“ Aaaaand he lost his nerve. Eddie’s voice sort of puttered out with a low breath. 

Stan tried to help out after waiting a moment for Eddie to finish. (…he didn’t.) “Well, I figured not.” 

Eddie’s voice sped up considerably. “Why would you say that?” 

He took a deep breath and cast a woeful glance toward his pack of Oreos. They would have to wait. This wasn’t quite Pandora’s Box he was opening, not nearly that mysterious, he in fact had a good idea where this was going from the start, but it still might get messy. Stanley decided, maybe for Eddie’s sake, to proceed with less caution, to be frank with him. “Only because I think you don’t really like her all that much, at least not in that way, and—” he was glad not to have to tell this to his face— “from what you tell me, she kinda sounds like your mother sometimes—“

Stanley glanced at his phone, only half baffled to hear the click of Eddie’s phone promptly slammed into the receiver, followed by the low drone of the dial tone. He let out a slow breath, deciding not to get frustrated, and let his arm fall extended onto the bed beside him, phone loose in his palm.

The ceiling of his apartment was decisively uninteresting, but he’d be damned if he was going to let himself get invested in something else only to have to drop it when Eddie, inevitably, wised up and called back.

He waited about two full minutes, hoping silently his Oreos wouldn’t stale. Could be a long wait. 

Again, over a decade for this.

The phone rang a moment later. 

“Stanley Ur—“

“I’m sorry I hung up on you but _please_ do not be a prick to me like that when I’m calling you for extremely sensitive advice.” 

His cadence was still rapid-fire, sounding almost exactly like it did when he was a kid, bowling over himself to get a point across before he lost steam. Stan ignored that little pang of nostalgia, rolling on his side. He sighed again, soft enough that Eddie wouldn’t be able to hear. “Eddie, all I can tell you is to be honest with yourself. That’s my sage advice on said sensitive subject.” 

Stanley waited for Eddie to say something. If Eddie said something, Stan decided, he would not continue with his current train of thought. It was, perhaps, a little too brutally honest for this delicate moment. Eddie seemed a little sore on the subject and he wasn’t keen on being hung up on again. 

Then again, if he did, Stan could return to his cookies. 

Eddie sniffed. 

So he wasn’t saying shit. Stan would have to. He’d ease him into it, maybe, open casually. Stanley thought about the number of times he’d tried to warm Eddie to talking on this subject and failed, but, hell. If not now, when? “Have you called Richie lately?” 

Stan had never heard Eddie take so many huffs and breaths between spurts of talking. Perhaps he should be concerned. 

“Not— well, I _had_ been then he hadn’t really— I’ve called but we haven’t _talked_ in a while because we’re just sort of playing phone tag and leaving messages— uh, no, not really.” He cleared his throat and Stanley noticed his voice drop incrementally, butching up slightly. “Not really, why?” 

“He misses you desperately and I have a distinct feeling he’s getting himself into some kind of trouble or another. And I, for one, trust my instincts. Give him a call, and maybe think about breaking up with that poor girl before you break her heart, for Pete’s sa—“ 

In order to continue, Stan had to bowl over Eddies desperate and scrabbling attempt to give any number of excuses, tired of it. He was pushing for last word, he deserved it after Eddie’s stellar opener. 

“And no, Eddie, Patty and I are waiting until we’re married, but trust me when I say the moment that day arrives I am pouncing on that like a cat on yarn.” 

This time Stan hung up, quite satisfied with himself at this point. The slam of the phone was utterly pleasing. He snagged his pack of Oreos and laid back, one arm bent up under his head. One, two breaths to relax, to remind himself they had to come around eventually and maybe that particular eventually would come sooner if he continued being utterly honest with his (loved, cherished) sometimes peanut-brained friends. Lord, could they use an ounce of self awareness here or there. Unfortunately, that was something Stanley couldn’t give them. Only careful advice to get them there. 

He bobbed one foot, deciding to return to his planned nightly activities. This included, mostly, the Oreos, and, more importantly, considering just how lovely Patricia Blum would look in a white gown. 

While he found himself thinking about it here and there, the closer he came to graduating, a year above her, the subject came to mind increasingly often. One thing was for certain. When the fateful day finally came, he was going to desecrate that glass, big jump, two feet, _smash._

Hopefully his friends could get their collective shit together before that went down. His wedding was going to be about Patricia Blum (Patricia Blum _Uris,_ what a positively delightful thought), there would be no distractions from her. So help him God. 

**5 MAY 1998**

**NEW YORK**

**9:36PM**

It wasn’t called the good old college try for nothing. 

And Eddie only had a week left of college. 

He hadn’t exactly _vowed_ to himself he’d graduate, finally, without his not-so-treasured V card intact, but now that they were down to the wire, it felt like something he could stand to lose before being pitched out into the great beyond of adult life post-undergrad. Stan’s frankly useless advice be damned.

He’d told his mother he was going to stay over at Myra’s to help her pack for her final university housing move-out and had not elaborated. Had not given her time to ask questions, to stare him down until he was sure she could see right through the backpack slung over his shoulder and see the change of clothes and the toothbrush and, most damning, the singular, individually wrapped condom, swiped shamefully from a basket in the university health center the day before. 

Perhaps needless to say, once he attempted to get down to business, things hadn’t gone according to plan. 

“Eddie?” 

He picked his head up from where he's buried it in Myra’s neck, able to feel the heat radiating off his face. “Yeah?” It came out dry, he could hear it, his voice was getting weak.

They hadn’t been at it for long. It, here, being kissing, which was really all they ever did. Eddie hesitated to call it making out, if only because maybe the term made him squirm, but he assumed that tonight they could make that jump. They were making out. They were horizontal. 

This was really happening. 

“You’re breathing kind of fast, do you wanna slow down?” 

Eddie’s brain had been working so hard since the moment he’d crossed the threshold he was surprised there wasn’t smoke pouring out of his ears. 

_We have to undress eventually, she’s going to see you naked. Or mostly naked. At least from the waist down, the worse half._

His voice hitched up a clean octave. “Am I?”

He’d been planning this, been considering it, had decided on paper it was a good idea. Hadn’t talked about it explicitly with Myra yet, but there had been hints. Here and there. (Need he mentally revisit the condoms in the drawer?) The idea of it, at least, seemed to have also crossed her mind. They’d been dating for a year, now, and according to Julie when he’d tried to be subtle about asking a week before calling Stan, it _was_ unusual. It was unusual to be dating for a year without having so much as participated in _heavy petting,_ another term Eddie cringed to think about. 

Stan’s voice pinged around in his skull. _Be honest with yourself._

Honestly, Eddie wanted to get in the car and go home. Take a bath, maybe, he was sweating bullets and his hair was sticking to the back of his neck and his mouth tasted overwhelmingly like strawberry lip gloss. As Myra continued winding her fingers through his hair, down his shoulders, sometimes up his shirt, Eddie wanted to back off, wanted to shelve this idea for later, for maybe never, when he thought about it, for maybe when he oh dear _fucking_ god why was he trying if he was wishing it would never happen. 

He winced as he felt his breath come a little shallower. His pulse, impossibly, raced quicker. 

_Not now._

Looking back on it, Eddie had no idea how he hadn’t seen it coming. In a fluid moment, the floor seemed to drop out from under the bed, leaving it floating over a chasm. Eddie sat back on his heels, a hand flat to his sternum, and oh, would you look at that, his throat was closing up. He held up a finger, trying desperately to keep his cool while panic flooded his brain, placing foot on the ground and unsteadily leaning back onto it to clamber off the bed. Myra’s expression moved from mildly concerned to horrified, propping up immediately on her elbows as Eddie backed toward the bathroom door. 

“ _Eddie—!_ ”

“ _One s— one sec_ ,” he hissed, hand fluttering around his chest and throat. Myra was going to have to be satisfied with that, as there was no way he was getting another word out before he keyed himself down. He reached behind him for the door knob, nearly falling backward through it when it swung open. He stumbled and caught himself, darting inside and frantically pushing the button to lock it when the door fell shut, wanting nothing more than a second to himself and a fresh breath air. 

_Wise choice, she’ll have to call a locksmith to come fish your cadaver out of here later when you suffocate._

Hand on the sink, Eddie lowered himself to the tile floor, gulping down too small gasps of air, the image of his throat tightening to a pinhole swamping his thoughts. 

_What’s the word, psychosomatic? It’s a stress response, it’s in your head._

Like that helped. He dropped back onto his shoulder blades, frantic breathing echoing harshly around the small bathroom, all packed up save the two toothbrushes and the hand soap on the sink. He tried, desperately, somewhere in his scrambled egg brain to convince himself he knew how to deal with this, knew how to not die on Myra’s bathroom floor because of this, knew how to calm himself down because he really should not be as panicked about this as he was. This was a little shameful, really, he couldn’t help but think, in the midst of the panic threatening to drag him under. 

_You left your inhaler at home, fucknuts. On purpose, like an idiot. Not like it would actually help, it’s a pacifier at best. Can you spell placebo? P-L-A-C-E-B—_

Needles were starting to stab at the inside of his lungs, as if he was drowning on dry land. 

_In your head in your head in your head_

He could barely hear Myra on the other side, frantic, uselessly trying the door as Eddie withered on the floor, struggling to take a real breath. 

_This is frankly just embarrassing at this point. This must be a trip for her, too, god, imagine the blow to the confidence this must be. Boyfriend running to the bathroom to choke to death at the idea of seeing you naked? Jeez, what a guy._

He kicked his legs out straight, laying flat on his back, willing his lungs to take in anything, to give up the gag, to breathe like they were fucking supposed to. He wheezed harshly, the sound scaring him more than anything—

_Oh fuck it is really bad oh shit I actually can’t breathe that’s not faking it that was real_

_—_ but gritted his teeth and willed himself to fight past it, lifting his shoulders and bullying his lungs to cooperate. He forced out a breath, terrified for a split second it may have been his last, before finally pulling one back in, full and heavy hand flying again to the front of his shirt. 

“Oh, _fuck me._ ”

Or not. 

He dropped his arms back onto the cool tile, winged out on either side of him, and closed his eyes, panting. He counted steadily, slowing down his rushed little gasps into something remotely normal, focusing solely on the rise and fall of his chest and stomach. His exhales grew less shaky, inhales longer and fuller, and Eddie lay there a moment more, bracing himself. Had to focus on regulating, block out the thoughts, get back to earth, _then_ could he beat himself up about it. 

Finally, with full clarity of breath, came full clarity of thought. 

_So that went just terrific._

He opened his eyes, looking down himself to the toes of his white socks, pointing up toward the ceiling, the bathroom door beyond that.

“Eddie?” 

Myra sounded a bit as if she was under water, voice meek, fearful, and Eddie closed his eyes again before working up the nerve to sit up. The embarrassment finally had a chance to settle in when the panic began to eke out, making room for something else to swallow him whole. He ran a hand through his hair as he sat up, briefly bringing his watery knees up to his chest and squeezing them before venturing to get up. 

Richie got to just upchuck and get it over with when his nerves got the best of him, and Eddie had to fight for his goddamn life every time he was so much as a little wigged out? In what fucking universe was that fair? He would have given six of his fucking toes to have just thrown up and moved on. 

Would have given seven or eight not to have thought of Richie immediately after that whole event. 

Throwing up, admittedly, may have come off as equally insulting to his poor girlfriend, but, fuck, at least he could chalk that up to food poisoning or something and have a valid excuse to go the fuck home. 

Myra cried for him again and he paused, hand on the doorknob. 

“Eddie, _please_ tell me you’re okay.” 

“I’m— yep, I’m good. Golden.” He couldn’t lie to her face, so he lied to the door. He rested his forehead on the cool wood for a moment, needing one more second before he faced her. The look on her face might just kill him. 

“What happened?” 

“A—”

_Can’t lie to her face._

He closed his eyes, white knuckled on the doorknob. He needed an excuse, he didn’t have a word for what that really was. Even if he did, how was he supposed to explain it to her? 

_Sorry, Myra, one of my closest friends recently informed me I apparently have no sexual feelings for you, I also must not be attracted to you, considering the idea of bumping uglies with you sends me into a panicked frenzy and nearly kills me. Relevant to that, I convinced myself as a child that I simply stop breathing every time something remotely upsets me, it’s really a great party trick._

But he _liked_ her. Somewhere, deeply, he did. He must. 

Needed her. 

Was scared of scaring her off. That thought nearly made his lungs seize again, the idea of Myra beginning to fully understand the extent of Eddie’s peculiarity, lack of independence, his various crutches and bad habits and placebos, and he had to force himself to speak just to keep his breath even. 

“That was—“ he winced, preparing himself for it— “asthma. I have asthma.”

The lock clicked when he finally turned the doorknob, slipping out and backing up to it when he closed it behind him, back stiff as a board. Myra stood in front of him, pajamas rumpled, cheeks pink, eyes wide with concern and shock. “That— _that_ was an asthma attack?” 

He was going to have to move across the fucking country after this. Maybe her brother had asthma and she saw right through that, knew he was lying, mother of fuck. “I um.” He scrambled. “The dust— there was probably a lot of dust stirred up when you were moving shit around and packing.”

_Or cockroaches. Cockroaches have been known to trigger asth—_

Eddie gestured uselessly, forcefully shutting his brain up. He let out a ragged breath, squaring his shoulders, hands on his hips. There were ways to recover from this, there must be. “I noticed you still have some boxes in here. I could help you get those in your car tomorrow.” His eyes flickered to the side, to a stack of them, then back to her. 

Myra stared. Eddie couldn’t blame her, she’d just witnessed the most humiliating self-inflicted cockblock of the century, and now here was Eddie trying to pick up the shattered pieces of his pride by offering to carry shit for her. 

Would it be worse if he just left? He’d have to face his mother’s dagger glare as she peered out of her room at him when he dragged his sorry ass up the stairs, but he felt like he deserved whatever he was in for at this point. He deflated, slipping his hands awkwardly into the pockets of his sweatpants and avoiding Myra’s gaze.

Myra finally spoke, voice soft, coaxing him. “Do you wanna lie down?” 

“Yes,” he sighed, glancing up at her, apologetic. He felt only a little pitiful, although honestly, pity felt like a comfort at that point. Might as well fall back onto all his bad habits in one fell swoop, right? “Just— just lie down?” He hated his voice when he said it, hated that she may never know he’d had plans for their evening, had plans to take a big step with her he seemingly couldn’t yet bear to, had plans to prove something to her and himself and maybe fucking god above and that maybe he’d proved the exact opposite. 

“Of course.”

She was a godsend. Normally, Eddie may have felt coddled, but something about Myra’s voice made it feel necessary. 

Bile rose in his throat. Eddie, as if he didn’t have enough to worry about, worried maybe he’d get his wish and throw up. He made no move to get back into bed, hands wringing. “I think we should wait.” His voice sounded weedy. 

“Wait for what?” 

God bless her for playing dumb. For acting like she wasn’t aware of what this was all about. Eddie was flushed down to his chest, all embarrassment, nothing fun, unable to meet her gaze. “For— we should wait.” He gestured, rolling his hands on his wrists. He had to get it out there before they returned to the bed. “You know—”

“Oh.” Myra blinked at him, her gaze soft. Sympathetic. 

Eddie wished dearly she’d just fucking _say_ something. Though his breathing had finally stabilized, his heart was still hammering freely away. He could feel it in his fingertips, in the back of his throat. “You know I mean— I mean I know, today, nobody really waits its a lot more normal to just— to— just _do_ it, you know, but I think I mean it’s—” 

“You’re a little old fashioned is what you’re saying,” she supplied, much to his relief “You mean wait for marriage?” 

“Yes, yeah, that,” he sighed, finally deflating. 

She looked at him, nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’m okay with that.” She smiled, soft, warming up. “Of _course_ I’m okay with that, Eddie, I wish you’d have said something sooner.” 

He swallowed, throat dry. “Really?” 

“It’s romantic, kind of. It’s nice.” There was something Eddie hoped he was imagining that betrayed a hint of disappointment in her tone. A hint of knowing something she maybe shouldn’t. 

Myra looked at him. Just looked. Eddie had a sinking feeling they both knew something they couldn’t dare to say aloud, lest it shatter their careful illusion. It felt like someone had stuck a fork in his abdomen and twisted all his organs up like so much thin spaghetti, lungs still burning and stomach heavy and heart thrumming and gut tight and aching. Myra placed a hand on his arm, guiding, comforting. 

_You need her, you need this,_ his brain told him. _This, right here, this is going to get you through it. She asks exactly the right questions and you provide exactly the right answers, it’s like dancing, it’s choreographed. There’s nothing easier than muscle memory._

“You’re okay?” 

“Yeah.” Eddie said, after a beat, after placing his hand over hers. Accepting it. He didn’t feel like crying, not from lack of self pity, maybe lack of energy. Lack of moisture, too, he felt wrung out. Dry. “Sorry, Myra, really, I’m sorry about that,” he croaked. 

“Come to bed.” 

He went easily.

**14 JUNE 1998**

**LOS ANGELES**

**10:04PM**

“It’s loud in here, sorry, your dad’s agency wants to _what?”_

Richie wasn’t close with Steve. He wasn’t a personal friend, was hardly a personal friend of Randy’s even, more of an acquaintance. Richie had been surprised that he showed up at all to the club, looking, actually, somewhat bored in the low light of the bar. 

“I don’t even know all the details,” Steve said, swirling a martini with an olive, looking much older than the 24 he was. Over it completely. “But he wants to take you on. He, specifically, wants me to take you on, he wants me to start managing, for fucks sake, and he thinks you should be my first client.” Richie could feel the eye roll, though Steve kept his gaze steady, if a little bored. “A fucking comedian.” 

“Now don’t get too excited, Steve-O, we don’t want you pissing your pants over these thrilling prospects.”

His set that night had gone over well. Richie was still getting the hang of things, still feeling himself out on stage, but hey, there were no tomatoes thrown. Some faces in the crowd were growing familiar over time. The laughs were coming, the material was getting stronger, the delivery more fluent. But Richie certainly hadn’t quit his day job. 

“You have an offer, Rick.” 

“Rich.” 

Steve looked over his glass at him. “Yeah. You have an offer.” 

Richie chewed the inside of his cheek, mulling. 

A small hand fell to his thigh and he perked up, turning a goofy grin toward Sandy and her Dirty Shirley on the other side of him. 

“Hey, Richie, sweetheart, do you mind walking me to the bathroom to powder my nose real quick?” 

His eyes widened, doing a double take over his shoulder at Steve and failing not to look suspicious before turning back to her, voice lowered considerably. “Right now? I mean it might help negotiate but I dunno—” 

“It’s— no, Richie, it’s just an expression, I need to talk to you.” She started to slide off her seat, giving Steve a somewhat forced smile as she tugged Richie away with her toward the bathrooms. 

He went willingly, having half a mind to ask if maybe they _could_ powder their noses more literally before returning. Nerves and indecision were clouding his brain, but the free glass of whisky from the bar wasn’t helping. A few patrons slipped past them as they made their way across the floor of the club, Richie receiving a few congratulatory claps on the shoulder and doling out a few little grins of gratitude. The praise was new, felt welcome in some ways, still uncomfortable in others. Sandy called it growing pains. 

He was still floating a little when Sandy stopped, pulling them aside in a quiet corner of the bar, dark eyes intent when she looked up at him. He leaned back against the wall and pulled her closer by the waist as another patron slipped past the two of them.

“What’s rattling, baby?”

She pressed her thumbs into his biceps, massaging across his arms, a reassuring sort of gesture which confused Richie just slightly. “Is this what you want to do?” 

“How do you mean?” 

“This, Richie, this stand up thing. If you get signed to an agency, this is like—” she removed one hand to gesture loosely. Richie caught a hint of worry in her big brown eyes, making his stomach tense up. “This is kind of big. Are you sure this is what you wanna _do?”_

“I—” Truthfully he didn’t know. He swallowed, glancing away from her, back toward the bar. “Do I have to decide that right now?” 

“No, not— not tonight, but, Richie. This is more of a stepping stone thing, don’t you think? You don’t want to be doing small stage work for the rest of your life do you?” 

There was something underneath this. Richie liked to think he knew Sandy pretty well at this point, was proud to be coming up on a year with her. He could tell when something was off, could also tell when she didn’t want to be pressed. _It’s not about me,_ she’d say. “I don’t know,” he admitted, reaching up with one hand to scrub at the back of his neck. “I understand there’d be contracts and shit involved, but I’m pretty sure getting signed to an agency is like— almost objectively a good thing in this town, isn’t it?” 

Her gaze was so even. “I still think you should act. I think you could do it.” 

“Hey,” he said, his smile returning, smoothing his hands down her narrow shoulders, “I already told you I wanna be _your_ Hollywood trophy wife, I’m still sticking resolutely to that plan.” 

“My Hollywood trophy wife who’s still bored out of his mind working at Blockbuster?” 

Richie thought about it for a moment. “I mean I’d quit Blockbuster once you really broke out onto the scene and starred in your first big movie so I could stay home and take care of the cats. Obviously.” 

“You could quit Blockbuster _soon,_ if this goes well. But it’s— I mean you have a sense of how these things work.” 

He did. Sort of. Most of Sandy’s friends were actors, he’d seen them bob and weave through the industry, no one going exceptionally far, falling out of it, in fact, more often than not. And he knew a few of the other regular acts at Tortoiseshell, some of the older career guys, had talked to a few of the out-of-towners passing by on low budget tours. Maybe should have talked to them more, looking back on it. 

“Sandy, I have to do this, right? This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime chances, yeah?” Excitement, maybe for the first time about this sort of thing, about this opportunity, budded in his chest. He’d been trying not to get his hopes up lately, tried to chalk up the bubbly elated sort of feeling that was stepping off stage after a particularly good run to nothing more than adrenaline, but, Christ. 

Agencies, managers, contracts— big stuff. 

Sandy tipped her head to the side, smoothing his shirt down. She had on a new bracelet, one Richie found for her, something small and elastic and beaded, a friendship bracelet dropped by a kid. Richie couldn’t help but feel fondly about it, about her, about the little things that adorned his hands and wrists from her and her little beach hoarder tendencies. “I mean it’s _Steve,_ but—” 

“Hey,” he said, holding onto her tight and bending slightly to look her properly in the eye. “I have a good feeling.” And maybe he wasn't even lying about it. “I think, for once, Sandy, fuck, I have a good feeling about this one.” He pecked the top of her head, hands framing her shoulders. “I think I gotta trust me. _You_ gotta trust me.” He wet his lips, casting a look over her head at Steve at the bar, watching them with a cool gaze. Richie dropped his eyes to her once more. “And you can still be the breadwinner, I promise. It is stand up, for fucks sake. You’re the one who's gonna be _in_ blockbusters. I’ll just be the one who used to work there.”

When she smiled, it was all the reassurance he needed. She patted him lightly on the sternum. “Keep that, that’s a cute pun, you could make a bit out of that someday.” 

**20 NOVEMBER 1998**

**NEW YORK**

**11:23 PM**

There was a Dairy Queen much closer to the Kasprbak’s apartment he could have gone to. There was no reason to drive all the way out toward school, a school he had graduated from the past summer, for a strawberry Blizzard. There was no reason Eddie should have been sitting in the car alone, in the parking lot after closing, watching the minutes on his car radio clock tick steadily toward his birthday, when he could just as easily be at home and warm and safe in bed. 

He didn’t even know why the hell he’d wanted ice cream. It was cold as shit, snow threatening, and the heater in the poor car was starting to piddle out with every bitter New York winter Eddie put it through. But the urge had been more than a craving. Something he was powerless not to listen to, dragging him out of bed and into sneakers and a parka, into the car, up toward school, through the drive thru at the last second. 

He let his head thump back against the headrest, eyes closing for a moment. The red and blue glow of the sign pressed gently purple against his eyelids, and Eddie was still, resigned. He was turning 23 in— he popped an eye open— 37 minutes. It took around 30 minutes to drive home, there was no sense in heading home now only to turn 23 idling outside his mom’s apartment. He might as well turn 23 with a Blizzard in hand, might as well turn 23 in this parking lot, in his chilly beloved car with the heater on the fritz. 

When Eddie opened his eyes, he was staring at the ceiling. A little orange smudge caught his eye, a tiny stain above the passenger seat. He reached up and over and thumbed at it to rub it out, wondering what the fuck it could be, candy colored and round, hardened to the touch. 

Residue, candy coating. It took him slow seconds to recognize it. Melted M&M. 

He switched the heater on and off, suffering through a few minutes of cold before blasting it again, as he picked through his Blizzard. He knew it wouldn’t—and he knew how to properly get the job done—but part of him hoped the old off-and-back-on-again trick would help the poor heater last longer. 

At least last until he turned 23. 

36 fairly quiet minutes later, serenaded by nothing but the radio playing nothing very familiar (Coldplay? Fuck if he knew), Eddie blinked bleary eyes at the green display, 12:00. 

“Happy birthday, jackass,” he muttered, tipping his blizzard cup back to pour the last slushy remains of his ice cream directly into his mouth. He raised it up as if to make a toast, sighing, letting his hand fall limply to his lap. “The only thing that would make this sadder would be if this was booze. Christ.” He thought on it for a second, staring woefully into the bottom of his cup. Maybe it was sadder that it was ice cream in late November. He was well old enough to buy booze. 

He could see a glimpse of the moon between iceberg floes of clouds, and shut his eyes against it. Eddie was not a romantic, he was not wistful, he chose consciously not to think about the whole deal about the moon being the same moon someone he was thinking of was looking up at. He kept his eyes shut, drew in careful breaths, and was glad not to see it for a moment. Glad not to feel the prickle of tears on his lash line. 

Eddie, now 23, eventually opened his eyes, yet unseeing. Set the empty cup in his cup holder. Stole a glance at his painfully empty passenger seat, too small to comfortably hold who he wished it did. Cleared his throat. Headed back to Queens. 

There was a message waiting on the answering machine when he got home, only a half hour old. 

**20 NOVEMBER 1998**

**LOS ANGELES**

**9:00PM**

“—Dear Spaghetti Man, Iknowthatdoesn’tfitthecadenceofthesongbutyoucandealwithitonyourowntimetakewhatyoucangetfromme, Happy birthday to you.” 

Richie never fancied himself much of a singer, but happy birthday was manageable. He’d heard somewhere that people who could sing well had a knack for impressions, and had to wonder if it was true the other way around. He’d figure it out some other time. The silence at the end of the song felt awkward, and he filled it quickly, putting on an easy and familiar voice just off from his own. 

“It’s 9PM in sunny Los Angeles, and baby you would not _believe_ it, I mean _sunny_. We’re hitting the winter stride out here in SoCal, though you couldn’t tell by the weather, but the sun has already tucked herself in for the night as I’m speaking to you. I can only hope the same for you, Eds, so you can wake up tomorrow and kick off the big two-three with a bang, _god,_ you’re old. By a bang I mean your oatmeal and milk, or whatever fiber-based breakfast so gets your rocks off nowadays. Um.”

The pause was brief but loaded. Richie switched off the radio voice he hadn’t used since he’d been in college and on air, pitching back to the nasally drawl he was none too fond of but which was the only voice that came out of his mouth without actively trying. “Happy birthday, man. Eddie. EddieEddieEds.” Filler, Rich. He cleared his throat. “Sorry it’s been a while. We’ll catch up soon, alright? I’m sure you’ve got your stuff going on and I know I’ve had a lot of mine, lately, but— uh.” His chest burned, tightened. His hand tightened on the phone. He closed his eyes, owing him an ounce of honesty. Things were good enough right now to allow him honesty. “You’re still on my mind, Eds. You are. I know it doesn’t— anyway.” Richie cleared his throat, having gone slightly hoarse. Too much talk lately.“Don’t party too hard without me. Tell your mom it was a drunk telemarketer if she asks why the phone rang so late, okay? Give her my love.” He took a slow, wishing he could manage, for once, to be concise. Perhaps a degree more genuine. “Happy birthday, Eds. Talk to you soon. Hopefully. Ciao for now, little buddy.” 

**17 MARCH 1999**

**NEW YORK CITY**

**9:10AM**

It was Myra’s encouragement, Eddie firmly believed, which landed him the job. A hair above entry level, if you’d believe it. She believed in him, she pushed him to the mark he should be at, she got him in working order and sent him off into the workforce with his precious little business degree. 

And he was, for all intents and purposes, a coffee jockey. 

Eddie only happened to glance at the calendar by chance, arms full of a drink carrier laden with styrofoam to-go cups from the cafe across the street, names of much more senior employees in the office scrawled across the lids. 

The date stuck in his mind for some reason, and he floundered for only a moment, wondering if he missed a birthday. He’d called Richie on the 7th, left a quick message. It wasn't the ides of March, that was the 15th. His brain practically itched, unable to produce a reason that the 17th of March was important to him, important enough to ache.

While he was still thinking about it, someone walked into him, or he walked into them, he wasn’t really sure, and Eddie dumped frankly scalding hot coffee all over his new white shirt and the shiny black shoes his mother had bought him when he’d gotten the job back in January. 

_“Shit!_ Oh, _fuck_ me—”

**11 MAY 1999**

**LOS ANGELES**

**11:45AM**

“It’s _comedy,_ Richie, you really wanna do comedy?”

It wasn’t a new fight. And it wasn’t a fight, they didn’t fight. They bickered, everyone did. They had disagreements. But Richie couldn’t help the frustration building in his chest each time they failed to see eye to eye, especially on this increasingly sore subject. 

Richie spread his arms wide, his shirt hanging off of him. Toothpaste flicked off the end of his toothbrush and hit the wall. “You got me started doing stand up, Sandy, what the fuck is so wrong with it now?” 

“That’s not a _career,_ Richie, not for you, it’s— it’s—”

He cast her a look, and she withered slightly, guilty. “It’s what.” 

She picked a nail. He raised his eyebrows. “Don’t look at me like that.” 

“It’s _what?”_

“If you lived in New York you could do SNL or something, sure, but that’s— it’s so _dead end,_ Richie, that won’t take you anywhere, and besides you live _here,_ you’re not down the street from 30 Rock, it’s not—” 

“What? Not _your_ lifestyle?” 

“You’re putting words in my mouth.” 

He shook his head, turning back toward the mirror. He’d moved in to the new place recently, his lease finally up with Ned and the guys. Javier moved in with his then girlfriend, Randy and Ned opted for a smaller place. Richie had been glad to get his own place, was happy with the cramped one bedroom, the bedroom, in fact, twice the size of the glorified broom closet he’d slept in for two years at the last place. He jammed the toothbrush in his mouth and Sandy leaned against the door. She was wearing one of his weird thrifted shirts, one that hung down to her mid thigh. Richie couldn’t help but examine just how much of the mirror he took up with just the breadth shoulders alone. 

He looked different from when he’d first arrived, it scared him a little, he looked like he took up more room than he knew what to do with recently. It scared him that maybe people could tell he felt that way just looking at him. That they agreed. “Look.” He spat foam into the sink. “I tried acting.” 

“Hardly.” 

“You asked me to, I tried, I didn’t like it.” 

“You weren’t bad!” 

“I wasn’t great.” And he hadn’t been. Sandy was a part of a little theater group, something to keep up practice between jobs, which had, admittedly, been somewhat few and far between. He’d made a valiant attempt, but he just wasn’t up to their level, he felt the eye rolls from the other kids at the little rehearsals before he’d finally quit. “You’re the actress, Sandy, I do— I’m different.”

“I just think there’s _more_ to you than stand up, Richie.” 

Here was where she lost him. Richie cupped his hand under the faucet, lifting water to his mouth to rinse, swishing. 

Sometimes he worried there wasn’t. 

Sometimes this felt like the only thing he was good at. He couldn’t throw his voice, never got around to getting an actual puppet, he couldn’t get a spot on a radio station, had had to quit doing the commercial voiceovers, but, fuck. He got on stage. He made people laugh. He got paid. And fuck, he actually liked it. He’d enjoyed recommending movies at Blockbuster, sure, but this was an actual _something._ This didn’t feel as temporary, this felt like a step on a path to a destination. Shouldn’t he run with that? 

“I wanna be liked for being myself, Sandy,” he said, surprising himself. It left him feeling raw. A little gutted. His voice had come out sort of weak, and he realized too late it was something a little too vulnerable. He swallowed thick minty spit and turned away from the mirror, scared to look at his expression. “That’s actually kind of hard for me to admit, I—” he shook his head, determined not to lose steam. _It’s Sandy._ “I don’t wanna be liked for pretending to be someone else, okay? I did that for long enough, I feel like I’m— breaking out of that a little, bit by bit, I don’t wanna play a character. That’s like lying, I—” 

He stopped short. Her expression had soured. She’d cut her hair recently, it fell just past her shoulders, the blonde a little more honey than the home-job platinum it had been when they met. 

She’d changed too, he realized, something rising and something sinking simultaneously in his chest. Two people can grow together. 

They can grow apart, too, he thought. He swallowed bile. 

“Does that make me a liar? I’m hiding behind acting and you’re being all honest and soul bearing because you’re telling dick jokes on stage?” She was small and coiled, arms crossed. “Didn’t know you were so glaringly self aware, Richie.” 

_“No,_ for fucks sake, that’s not what I meant—” he slapped a hand to his forehead. “Christ, Sandy, you’re being cruel.” 

“Am I?” 

“A fucking little!” He brushed past her to head into the kitchenette, reaching for a box of cereal on top of the fridge. Snacky. Fidgety. “Sandy,” he started, leaning against the counter. The sun caught her skin when she turned, striped across her in the doorframe, the determined little look on her face. 

A little flame. Infuego. God damn, he did love that about him. 

About her. 

Oh. 

_Remind you of someone?_

Richie felt his stomach swoop for only a moment, deftly avoiding the existential crisis that came in the sudden connection. The guilt there, something piled up, something that came with careful aversion, with the numbing of feelings never addressed—

He shook it off. 

_Focus, Rich. Focus. Tell her._

He told her. “Sandy, I think— fuck, don’t walk out on me when I say this, I love you. I say this because I love you and I’d like to think I know you pretty well by now, okay?” 

She waved a hand. “Say your piece.” 

He took a breath. This could end badly. “You were jealous when I signed with Steve.” 

Her deadly silence neither confirmed nor denied. But her eye roll did. 

He swallowed. Fuck, god, that looked so familiar, that little twinge in his gut at that _look,_ that almost tender touch of pettiness was something that went back so far, so long before she’d so much as existed in his mind, back to childhood—

_You miss him, idiot. You miss_ him _, but she’s right here._

He shouldn’t be allowed to think this way, not right now. Fucked up to think this way while they were arguing— bickering. He couldn’t take her for granted, for the love of fuck. Richie closed his eyes when she lifted her eyebrows expectantly, shaking it off the best he could though it stuck to him like burrs. 

He continued. “You were. Little bit.” 

“I was not.” 

“Hey.” He swallowed his handful of frosted flakes and set the box down, crossing back to her, placing his big dumb mitts of hands on her shoulders. “You don’t have to worry about anything, okay? I don’t care if we’re in like— different spots, okay? If I take off I’m taking you with me. I don’t think I’m going to, honestly, I’m kind of waiting for the fall from grace any day now, my karma has been way too good lately, but you don’t have to worry about that.” 

She pursed her lips, quiet. It took her a moment to meet his eyes, still silent, but somewhat reassured. 

“You’re coming with me, kid, I’m sorry. You signed up for this, and I am giving you your honest dollar’s worth.”

He won a smile. A tiny one. Sandy wasn’t big on hiding her smile, but it felt good to get that one out of her. That was what counted, right then. Won a smile from her, one more. One for the road. 

_Sandy,_ he thought, consciously. _She’s everything, she’s enough._

His answering machine beeped in the other room. 

A hint of doubt crept into his voice that he couldn’t help. “You’ll come with me, right?” 

**27 SEPTEMBER 1999**

**3:22 AM**

The stupid _this is a mistake, this is a mistake, this is a mistake_ pounding at the back of Eddie’s skull wasn’t nearly as pleasant as was the heady static overtaking his thoughts as he was kissed into the pillows. That he was going to choose to ignore, and the sound Richie made when Eddie so lightly let his hand slide up under the back of his shirt drowned it out nicely. 

His skin was hot, his breath was hot, he could taste it in his own mouth. His sweat, his mouth, him—

— A shift, subtle, a different bedroom but the same scent of his skin. Hearts beating steadily but without urgency. There was something in the exact weight of him, the shape of his body contoured against his own. Still and easy. The even sound of his sleeping breath, the occasional mutter from his ever full mouth, harmless nothing-words Eddie could pour over like literature. The way his spine curved just so when Eddie traced the pad of one finger down the line of it. He wanted to chart him like a roadmap, he wanted an Atlas of him. Wanted to thumb through the pages and dog ear his favorites, crack the hardbound spine over years of pouring it over, memorizing— 

—There were so many colors flecked in his irises when they caught in sunlight. More than blue, an everything around the contracting pupil. And when they turned back on Eddie, he could see the slow dilation, the way he focused intently behind the thick panes of his glasses. The way when he smiled Eddie’s heart expanded in his chest and pressed up against the insides of his ribs, desperate for more room, filled entirely by him, suffocated in a way that didn’t hurt at all. And when Richie laughed it felt like something healing, something that scrubbed away all the hurt, all the distance, all the heartache. 

Eddie didn’t need medicine when Richie laughed—

—Eddie had just gotten the thought to slip a hand into Richie’s hair when he felt hips shift on top of his own, and he felt Richie groan before he heard it. Jesus, did it do things to him when he heard it. It was so much lower than Eddie thought his voice could go, and Eddie had the brilliant idea to tweak a few more locks in his fingers when suddenly Richie’s mouth was gone from his, returning hot against the side of Eddie’s neck. 

That he _loved,_ knew it immediately. Eddie arched up, Richie’s palm there to catch and lift the small of his back. It was like being dipped, almost, his neck stretching up to allow Richie more access. Dancing. His palm felt huge against him, fingers spreading wide and making Eddie dizzy. His knees fell apart subconsciously and Richie’s body fell into place between them, both of them hanging on a tense moment. 

Eddie’s eyes, squeezed shut, snapped open, blinked. He listened in the dim quiet of the room, catching little warm glimmers of light off Richie’s curls visible just in his periphery. He couldn’t decipher the time of day, couldn’t understand the color of the light pressing softly against their skin. Hazy around the edges. He could see the curve of Richie’s back, he enjoyed for a moment the image of his own hand resting between his shoulder blades. Grounding him like gravity while Richie lifted him up like helium. Richie was panting, lightly, breath skating across Eddie’s skin. Raspy and wanting and _hot, fuck_ that was a hot sound that was a hot moment Eddie wanted it to keep going he wanted it to _go._

With the slightest shift of the hips, Eddie gave him the green light, and Richie’s whole body curved in toward him. 

His brain lit up, a few different nerves firing at once and confusing, yanking a harsh sound from his chest. 

He realized a moment later why: ouch. Something hurt. Eddie reached up to tug at his hair, trying to relieve the sudden pressure against the side of his throat. He whined something along the lines of Richie’s name and he let up with the teeth, kissing apologetically, making it all better. Synapses seemed to sizzle for a moment. That was a nasty trick. That felt fucking incredible. 

Richie lifted him slightly with his hand, easily, ( _wow)_ and Eddie sank down closer into him, watching Richie arch forward to change his angle. He moved down from his previous spot and latched on, sucking on the junction of his neck and shoulder in a way that made Eddie’s toes curl. His toes literally _curled,_ that was a thing, that was happening, that wasn’t an expression, his whole body down to the arches of his feet was tense when Richie did that and oh god he did not want Richie to stop doing that. Maybe ever, maybe they could cling to this moment for an eternity. It felt possible. He groaned again, rumbled deep in his chest, the sound this time directly under Eddie’s ear, and Eddie said his name aloud, voice hoarse. He pressed up and Richie pressed down, their legs intertwined somewhat, he could feel the shift of denim against denim. Eddie saw stars. 

Richie bit down again and Eddie sank his nails into the muscle of his back, hearing a growl. 

Hearing a _growl._

Eddie hung on for as long as it was pleasant. Until it wasn’t. Suddenly it wasn’t pleasant, suddenly it was bad. He clawed at Richie’s shirt, pulse suddenly frantic under his lips, his _teeth,_ it _hurt_ it wasn’t nice anymore it felt _mean_ it felt more than wanting he didn’t like it—

Eddie squirmed, suddenly ready to work his knees under Richie’s hips and throw him off if he had to when he heard a tear, a sick organic rip and felt hot wet smoldering pain blossom across the side of his neck, eyes open wide and staring at Not-Richie with shattered glasses, Not-Richie with sharp teeth clinging to ribbons of Eddie’s flesh, grin grisly and dripping gore down his chin and neck and the front of his soft blue cotton ringer t-shirt he always wore to bed that smelled like Eddie’s fabric softener, eyes sharp and yellow, slitted, hungry—

Eddie woke up swinging, voice lost entirely, not even able to scream before he pulled in a desperate grasp for air. He clamped a hand over his mouth, knowing he wanted to shriek for all he was worth and clamping his teeth down hard on his fingers instead, tears springing readily into his eyes. 

_That’s real pain, feel it? That’s real, that was fake. That wasn’t real._

He shook out his hand and scrambled to check his neck just in case, finding it mercifully intact. No blood down the front of his shirt, no veins spraying onto his sheets. 

Fresh tears came suddenly that had nothing to do with the sore fingers, nothing to do with recognizing the all too-familiar tightness in his chest that was his brain attempting to suffocate him. He pressed his back up against the headboard, cool: he was damp with sweat. Out of nothing less than necessity, Eddie let himself cry silently for a moment, much more concerned with controlling his breathing. If he could think his way into it, he could think his way out. He could think his way—

“Eddie?” 

Myra’s voice was so tired, so sincere, he tensed against it. He felt a hand fall on his thigh, having reached for his arm and finding him not where he was when they’d fallen asleep. 

“Eddie, sweetie, what’s wrong?” 

Language was failing him; any attempt to move air through his chest was pushing out tears and nothing else, no sound, and he feared for a moment he’d start blathering like a scared kid if he even attempted to talk. He clamped his jaw shut as Myra shifted to sit up with him. 

His eyes were still closed, cowardly in the pitch dark of her room, when she turned his face gently toward hers. He knew she could feel the wet streaks down his face and he wanted to pull away, embarrassed suddenly by it. 

“Bad dream” was all his broken voice could muster, wetly, under the pressure of her silence. The worried gaze he couldn’t see but knew was there. 

“Again?” 

Eddie felt cold, blinking without intending to see. Freeing the moisture clinging to his lashes. His hand came up to cover Myra’s on his face. _Again?_ What did she mean again? 

Myra just barely started to shift back down into the sheets and Eddie easily came with her, chest hitching just once when his shoulders hit the sheets. Her hand smoothed back his hair, slick with sweat. 

“You were thrashing around last night.” Hushed, like it was a secret. As if she said it quietly enough, it wouldn’t impress upon reality. “It scared me.” 

His lip trembled when she felt his forehead as if checking for a fever, suddenly recoiling. She paused, hand hovering, and Eddie caved and tucked himself under her arm and against her chest, searching for a security he knew he could find if he only looked hard enough. 

His heart throbbed in his throat. _This is a mistake. This is a mistake. This is a mistake._

**27 SEPTEMBER 1999**

**3:22 AM**

The drop of moisture that plinked onto the bridge of Richie’s nose could have been rain, if rain were hot. If rain felt viscous, organic. If Richie were outside, not tucked into his stack of two mattresses on the floor. Richie knew, even as the second drop fell, his eyes still shut tight, what would be waiting for him when he dared look. 

The leper was back.

The first time, Richie thought someone had broken into the apartment. Thought he’d left his window open and some drug addled passerby from the LA streets below had clambered inside, looming over his bed as he slept, breath heavy and reeking. He’d braced himself for the awkward and potentially dangerous process of attempting to get the poor schmuck out of his apartment without ratting on him to the police, but the first indications that something Else was going on struck him when he’d tried to sit up for a better look. 

He’d found he couldn’t move.

Richie had found himself glued to the spot, unable to so much as unlock his jaw to cry out, as the thing (realizing quickly it was a _thing_ now rather than a flesh and bone human being) shuffled closer to his bed, head cocked as if curious. Curious about him, board stiff on his back in bed. Helpless when it clambered easily onto the mattress, dragging bandages crusted over with dried pus and blood over the exposed skin of his chest, situated itself on top of him. Breathed slow, congested, haggard, watched with glazed yellow eyes, face inches from his own. 

This time was no different. Richie counted slowly, feeling his breath start to pick up and consciously trying to soothe himself, counting and praying if he got his thoughts focused on something else when he opened his eyes it would be gone. Yet when he finally dared to look, its gaze met his, cataracts grey glossy and pale, what was left of the skin on its face sloughing downward as it peered at him in the dark. Breath, if it could be called that, whistled through its exposed nasal cavity, cartilage long rotted away. The stale air from its withering lungs stirred the hair on his forehead, raised the hair on his arms and the back of his neck. 

Richie thought that, perhaps over time, the fear would diminish, the acceptance that his sanity was set to be toyed with for a few sleepless hours would sink in and he would become numb to the sensation if this kept happening, but his heart still revved into overdrive in his otherwise still chest as it bent over him, crouched next to his mattress. The third time, now, the third visit from the leper, and the fear still tasted the same on the back of his tongue, iron and salt like blood and sweat. 

The one new factor this night brought struck him squarely in the chest. He wasn’t alone with it this time. Sandy hardly stirred beside him, the gentle rise and fall of her chest where she pressed against the side of his arm unable to soothe him as the leper’s tongue lolled out of its toothless maw, a fresh deluge of it’s reeking drool spattering now on Richie’s exposed neck, hot and unwelcome. He knew the rules by now, knew it could touch him, knew he could feel it, knew when he woke up any harm that had come to him would be simply erased by the dry heat of California morning light, but rationality slipped quickly when it prodded at him, when it experimentally reached out and brushed scabbed scarred fingertips over Richie’s cheekbone. It’s nails were ruined, bitten or rotten or nibbled on by fungus, chipped and crumbling where they skated against his skin. He could only blink, could only squeeze his eyes shut, was powerless to so much as turn his head away from the horrible sensation, nothing more than a whimper escaping his vice-clamped mouth when he felt it press a hand into the mattress beside his head and start to clamber onto the bed. 

For a sickening second, Richie wondered if it could get to Sandy too, if it could cast the same spell on her and leave her shock still and wide eyed beside him, neither of them able to shake it. The moment the petrifying thought crossed his mind the leper seemed to gain sudden interest in her, its sickly weight settling onto Richie’s chest as it leaned across him, prodding at her hair where it fanned across her shoulder and neck. She was turned toward Richie, curled on her side, face relaxed and unaware, and Richie felt tears prick at his eyes as his stomach curdled with a mixture of terror and rage, a begging screaming _don’t touch her_ inaudible in the night silence of the room as the leper began to loom over her, crawl over Richie, holding him down with a hand pressed to his sternum and a knee digging into his stomach. It made it hard to breathe, impossible to make so much as a sound. He felt the creaking of its worn down joints as it leaned its weight into him to examine Sandy; the leper gurgled, a wet, mucusy sound deep in its chest, as if pleased; Richie’s heart the became loudest thing in the room and the only thing he could seemingly get to move as it lowered it’s face toward her, toward sleeping helpless Sandy, it’s tongue wet and flaccid and dangling just over her ear, brackish greenblack spit dribbling down onto the smooth pale skin of her cheek, dripping down the curve of her jaw and Richie couldn’t so much as flex his fingers, only able to watch, forced to watch, pinned down and screaming screaming with no air, no sound, as if something had choked up his windpipe and ripped out his tongue—

His pulse stilted when Sandy’s eyelids fluttered. She hummed, disturbed, and Richie’s whole body went cold as he realized she _must_ be able to feel it, must be on this ride with him. The leper braced a palm littered with open weeping sores against the bare skin of her shoulder, ready to roll her onto her back and pin her down, but all she saw when she blinked open her eyes was Richie, her dark gaze sleepy and bleary as they struggled to focus on him in the dimness, a hint of a grin on her face in the silver moonlight streaming in the window, her hand reaching out to rest on Richie’s chest. It never reached him, fell instead onto the back of the leper’s where it pressed him bodily into the mattress and Sandy failed to so much as notice the difference oh she couldn’t see it she couldn’t feel it and Richie was horrified at the sight of both of their hands overlapping, the leper’s blocking her from touching him from stirring him—

“Richie?” 

It was gone. Blink and you miss it. 

Like an incantation, the sound of his name in her voice snapped him out of it and Richie found his breath. He sucked in a gulp of air, mouth dropping open the second his jaw unlocked, and Sandy called his name again, propping up on one elbow, her face half curious and half concerned. “You okay?”

He certainly _hadn’t_ been. Richie could have wept with relief when he finally sat up, coiled muscles springing into action so quickly that his back strained and ached. He pressed his face into his hands to collect himself, not wanting to concern Sandy any further before he had a grip on himself. His heart thudded dully, bile ready at the back of his throat he had to consciously swallow down, voice rough and ragged. “Jesus _fuck.”_

He nearly did weep when she set to rubbing his back, understanding apparently without a word. Richie stiffened against it for only a moment. It felt like melting when he sank back against her palm and dropped a shoulder heavily into the mattress, everywhere she touched gone molten. It took him several breaths to cool off, several paranoid glances into the dark corners of the room before he could close his eyes again. Tuck against her. Breathe it out. Rinse repeat. 

“What was all that about?” 

Richie shook his head. “Unpack later. Sleep now.” 

“You sure?” Her voice sounded breathy, fond, a little tired. 

He felt a surge of affection fill the scared empty cavity in his chest when she set her chin on top of his head, his nose pressing against the hollow of her throat, Sandy trying her best to bundle him up in her arms despite being so much smaller than him. Made it feel okay to be a little small, here and there. Worry lingered at the corners of his mind, but as his breath synced up with hers, he could feel the edges of it soften. He hummed. 

“Sometimes I think you have a lot you haven’t unpacked with me, Richie.” 

_Leper, leper._ Richie thought. Leper, sometimes, didn’t feel recent. Neither did big black dog, neither did the overreaction last week when something gurgled in a storm drain below the sidewalk and Richie nearly pissed himself right there on the street. He recited it in his head, willing his mind to settle: _Unpack later. Sleep now._ He flattened a palm to the smooth slope of Sandy’s back under the silky material of her tank top, shutting out thoughts that these things came from somewhere. Sometime other than now, familiar manifestations. He flexed his fingers, a nerve twinging in the palm of his hand like he’d tugged on scar tissue. 

“Sometimes I think you’re right.” 

**4 OCTOBER 1999**

**NEW YORK**

**2:15 PM**

Walking into the mall felt like embarking on the first few steps of Eddie’s own personal Green Mile. He thought, ruefully, that maybe this mission was one better made with company. His knees threatened to give out any second, each step more wavering than the last. Stan hated shopping malls, but this seemed like the kind of venture he’d agree to go on. Something maybe up his alley. 

Or maybe not, maybe he would have done the reasonable thing and talked Eddie out before he could even embark on this. 

This— this whatever _this_ was.

Eddie was plagued with a crushing sense of _what the fuck are you doing_ the further he crept into the mall. It wasn’t overly crowded, thank fuck, he’d chosen a Wednesday afternoon for that exact reason. A few kids, mall rats, mostly, fucking around after school, parents toting Macy’s bags, an exhausted looking janitor hunched over a mop dragged sullenly over a stain Eddie didn’t even want to pause to consider. 

They’d never really gone to the mall when he was a kid. Not that there was a mall in Derry, there might be one there by now, he wasn’t sure. There’d been one not too far away in Bangor. Small, not too impressive; Eddie had lied about his evening plans once to go with Greta and the girls, only the one time. Had tried Dip N Dots, he remembered that, the sensation of the chilly little beads melting on his tongue, strawberry. But even as an adult he didn’t often find himself inside a mall. Nearly never. 

Too crowded, Sonia had decided early on, too much excitement and room for troublemaking for the delicate constitution of her son. And filled with entirely too many shoe stores for her liking, lest they forget the presumed nearly fatal incident when he was a toddler.

For the best, Eddie thought, sometimes. More often nowadays. She’d only ever wanted the best for him. 

It was all he could do to carry that torch, to still do his best, into this pseudo-adulthood he’d suddenly found himself forced to navigate. The best choice, the right choice, the _smart_ thing to do, the logical next step, the eat your beans and drink your milk and maybe don’t think too hard about how much you hate the taste. The medicine was bitter, but it made you better. 

It wasn’t late enough into October for Monster Mash to be pressed through the scratchy speakers around the place, thank god, but whatever was playing was only making Eddie all the antsier. Quick, heavy beat, bassy, something from the 80s he might usually otherwise like. It made him frantic instead; he wanted this over with. _What the fuck are you doing_ mixed sourly with _this is a good thing, this is an exciting thing_ in his churning stomach. A big, fucked, life changing thing. 

_(Up, down, turn around_

_Please don't let me hit the ground)_

Halzberg should have felt welcoming, but the white glow behind the glass display cases only served to give Eddie a slight headache. His checkbook felt heavy in his back pocket, the numbers he’d parsed out for a budget for this thing lost on him as his sneakers dragged him closer, seemingly of their own accord. Funeral march. 

There was a mirror by the entrance, a small one, he could see himself approaching. The big brown flannel shirt he’d buttoned up over his sweater before leaving the apartment hung off of him, making him look small and weedy and generally out of place. One of his shoes was untied, but he couldn’t bring himself to bend down and fix it, not when it felt like every worker in the little shop was staring him down, sizing him up. Asking him, the skinny, scared looking kid in the jeans and the sneakers, what the ever loving _fuck_ he thought he was doing. 

He should have brought Stan. He should have brought anyone. He should have brought anything besides his checkbook and the burden of expectation that crushed down on his narrow shoulders, the exhaustion that hung heavy under his eyes, the sinking feeling that this was something he _had_ to do, something that everyone did eventually, something that set him firmly on the _good right safe mother-knows-best_ path, tired of fighting it, numb to anything besides the instructions laid out in front of him by years of unquestioned unfailing tradition. 

_(Oh, you've got green eyes_

_Oh, you've got blue eyes_

_Oh, you've got grey eyes)_

She had green eyes, right? They were green. Weren’t they? They were green. Eddie was pretty sure. They wouldn’t ask that, would they? They wouldn’t come up to him, armed with accusatory shark smiles and white kid gloves waiting to swipe through the dirt on his weak defenses, and ask, _what color, pray tell, are the lucky girl’s eyes?_ Quiz him, test his true intentions, leave him floundering. 

Don’t even know the color of her eyes? 

How long have you two been dating, pray tell? 

Are you sure this is the right decision? 

Are you sure _now?_

But if not now, _when?_

What color are the poor dear’s _eyes_ , for god’s sake? 

_Blue, mostly, blue behind the glasses, but sometimes they do look a little grey when its overcast, when he’s having an off day, green but only when he wears green, they change, its incredible, the way they change, he’s got these great big mood rings set in his face like jewels and boy do they sparkle when he smiles and I’ve had to picture it, lately, I’ve only been able to picture it, I haven’t seen him in three years, fuck, has it been three years almost? More than that They’re blue,_ god, _they’re blue but they’re everything else—_

“Hi, welcome t—”

“Green!” Eddie nearly shouted, hands flying up in defense when the clerk jumped in turn. He stared at her for a moment, heart hammering, before trying desperately to pass it off with a dry laugh. “Sorry, hi.” He rubbed the back of his neck, scanning the cases frantically to avoid looking her in the eye. Necklaces, bracelets, bangles, pretty little things. “Uh— sorry. Just— sorry.” 

The clerk blinked, eyes sliding sideways to another employee as if to make sure he knew she was here at the desk dealing with what very possibly could be a complete nutcase, you never knew in these filthy malls, before continuing with the formalities, maybe more for her own sake than Eddie’s. 

“What can I help you with today?” 

**12 NOVEMBER 1999**

**LOS ANGELES**

**12:47PM**

Despite having lived there for a little over two years, Richie still thanked his lucky stars for the weather in Los Angeles every fall. Never did he think he’d be so blessed to live somewhere where he could wear shorts and a t-shirt in mid November. It felt, sometimes, like the chill of Maine winters had finally started to burn off of him under the sun, like his past was merely something behind him, like the world opened up before him as did the stretch of the Pacific Ocean. 

He really did try not to wax overly poetic about it, sitting in a greasy spoon diner one perfectly average and content afternoon, but maybe the persistent sunshine was baking his brain day by day. At least he’d die happy. The backs of his thighs where his shorts rode up stuck to the cheap orange vinyl booth seat, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind all that much. He sighed, draping his arms out over the sticky laminate table toward Sandy, who sat somewhat primly across from him, her coffee untouched save the deluge of sugar and quick stir it had received when the waitress first set the down cream colored mug. A little navy blue stripe circled it maybe an inch below the rim. Richie felt lazy and hot and easy, stretching himself out until his back clicked and his chin hit the table, glancing up like a dog at her over the frame of his glasses. 

“I can see your little gears turning up there, Sand Dune, what’s on your mind?” 

Sandy blinked herself out of deep thought, a sliver of hot honey brown catching in her iris when she shifted her glance down toward him. Richie felt her gaze settle over him like a cool blanket. 

“Wondering when our food’s gonna finally get here.” She picked up the coffee mug as if just remembering it. Her nose scrunched when she finally took a sip: probably cold. 

Richie inched himself up, propping his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, still leaning slightly into her half of the table. It wasn’t a place they frequented, but wasn’t a place they’d never been before. Sandy had wanted to meet for lunch, Richie knew she had a shift later that night. He was off for the day, didn’t work again until his gig that Thursday night. Two more Thursdays before Thanksgiving, something Richie had been thinking about with intensifying frequency: he hadn’t given his parents a solid yes or no answer yet. He figured he and Sandy had crossed well out of the threshold of _too soon,_ but maybe the factor of distance upped the seriousness of it, maybe next year was better. Maybe he should just ask, see what she thought. Maggie tried to hide it on the phone, but she was dying not only to see her kid again, but to finally put a face to the name Richie practically sang on the phone all the damn time. 

Sandy had been increasingly pensive this fall. She’d gotten a break: not _the_ break, but something, maybe, to write home about. A show, a small one, put together by some friends of friends with a good idea, a couple okay connections, and a low-mid range budget. It wasn’t _exactly_ what she wanted to be doing, but it was a great step in the right direction, and while her role wasn’t a main lead it was close. She’d looked a little shocked a month ago when she heard back about the casting, heard she’d landed a part and this could be a good thing, and Richie had picked her up swung her around the kitchen to celebrate. Had practically run to the liquor store for a bottle of bottom shelf champagne. It took her a second to warm up and get excited about it, seemingly afraid to get her hopes up that the part or the show would take her very far, but Richie’s contagious pride and enthusiasm had affected her eventually. 

His girlfriend was going to be a movie star someday. That, Richie thought about often. His grin slid across his face like sprinkles on sun warmed ice cream thinking about it now, looking at her now. She’d looked away again, sipping her coffee with a tense mouth, unaware of being observed so closely. Richie melted a little when the sun streaked across the bridge of her nose, lighting up a little constellation of caramel colored freckles on her nose, a little red from their trip to the beach a couple days prior. 

“How long does it take to put together a damn salad, Jesus,” she muttered, looking back toward the little bar. 

“Maybe they’re bringing it out with my pancakes.”

“Well, how long does it take to make a short stack?” 

Richie felt as though he could have easily worked a quick little joke in there, but his mind was properly elsewhere. 

_So, I truthfully think there’s no good reason to ever go visit bumfuck nowhere Missouri, but my parents are kind of giving you and me a good excuse, if you want—_

No. Rephrase. Richie reworked it in his head, sitting up more fully to pick at his nail bed and mull it over. Tried to think about it like rewriting a tricky line in a bit, but he couldn’t help the feeling that he should be serious about this. It was a good thing, but a serious thing nonetheless. 

Someone behind the counter switched the radio stations over the speakers when a commercial came on, fiddling around through a little static before landing on a Weezer song a few bars in. Richie nibbled on his lip lightly to keep himself from beaming. 

She’d shown him this album. Put this song on for him specifically. _Wheezy?_ Richie remembered saying in her bedroom, _that’s such a terrible fucking name._

_Weezer. Listen to the lyrics, numbnuts,_ she’d said. _I can’t believe you haven’t heard this before._

It wasn’t their song, per say, that was a little cheesy, but it was one that never failed to make Richie think of Sandy. Nice to hear it again sitting where he was with the best view in all of California. Maybe not the most ambient song for his mood, but it felt some kind of fitting. 

_(And you’re Mary Tyler Moore)_

She was a TV star, wasn’t she? 

The waitress skirted around another patron and slid their food onto the table, Sandy’s salad bowl and Richie’s hot fluffy stack of early afternoon pancakes. He sat up just in time to make room, licking his lips and reaching for the little pitcher of maple syrup on the table as the waitress retreated. 

“So.” Sandy began, eyes on her salad. “I got news about the filming the other day.” 

Richie looked up, fork and knife poised in his hands, searching her face. The filming was for the show, there was no other filming to talk about. 

_(But you know I’m yours_

_And I know you’re mine._

_And that’s for all—)_

“Yeah? What’s the lowdown?” Richie was, in all honestly, clueless about making a television show, but he could follow along the best he could. 

“They scheduled it out for six months for the first season. They’re still looking for a station that wants to pick it up, but we need to get started on a reel.”

Richie nodded, taking an oversized bite of pancake. Jeez, they needed to start coming to this diner more. They were buttery and sweet, a little hint of salty crispness from the greasy flattop pleasant on his tongue. Sandy just sort of pushed a cherry tomato around in her salad. 

Six months. “Damn, so you’re gonna be occupied for a while with that, huh?” That was good news. He could tell she’d been feeling down between little gigs and theater stuff here and there, which, she admitted, lately felt like busywork, so having something to focus on might perk her up a little. 

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk about.” 

Richie swallowed too hard on the next bite, wincing. Something in the air had changed. He looked up, scanning her face, the clinking of forks and knives and hum of other conversations in the restaurant dimming. 

Sandy, he was terrified to realize, looked something like guilty. He felt his eyebrows draw together, hand tensing on his fork. “What, are you worried I’m gonna get separation anxiety and start chewing up the furniture while you’re working? I promise I can clean up after myself if I piddle on the floor.” Not like they lived together, but they did often come home to each other in the other’s apartment, given that they carried each other’s apartment keys. “Sandy, I’m excited about this for you, I don’t—”

“It’s in Seattle, Richie.” 

He didn’t quite drop his fork, but it clattered obnoxiously against the plate when he fumbled it, making him jump. “S— that’s—” No, that was Sacramento. “Seattle, _Washington?”_

She just looked at him. 

Sandy always told Richie he needed to give himself more credit for his own intelligence, that while he often wrote himself off as being a goofball, he was clever. He could draw his own conclusions. 

He really didn’t like this particular illustration going on. 

He laughed. A clipped little bark, something he clamped his hand over quickly. “So you— wow. Okay.” He was surprised to find he couldn’t control his tone, caught off guard. The stack of pancakes in front of him suddenly looked like too much food, despite having been ravenous a few minutes ago. “Okay,” he said again, scrambling. “Okay, Seattle’s just— that’s not so bad.” 

He wanted to flinch away when Sandy set her still unused fork down and reached across the table for one of his hands. She hadn’t even touched him but it burned, it burned like the bile down the back of his throat, his skin burned where she tried to touch him but he wouldn’t let her suddenly. 

He realized for the first time that day that the chain she usually wore around her neck, the one that plunged into the neckline of her shirt or dress, was absent. The one that held the key to his apartment. 

Richie felt trapped suddenly, eyes flickering to the doors at the front and back of the restaurant. _Let’s get out of here,_ he wanted to say. _Let’s forget about this whole thing and get out of here, let’s run away to Mexico and live on a cactus farm and never ever look back. Fuck showbiz, we’re about wide open spaces and good chorizo now._

He didn’t say anything. 

His hand rested still on the table, consciously relaxing it, and Sandy cautiously placed hers on top of it. Thumbed the cheap, now tarnished ring on his pinkie she’d picked up off the street for him the night they met. The weird little bracelet she’d found him on their second date on the boardwalk, big brown chunky hand painted beads decorated with white daises. It felt constricting now, threatening to cut off his circulation and sever his hand, to leave it here on the diner table under her warm little palm. 

She didn’t even give him the mercy of looking away, her eyes searching him as she continued. His heart nearly broke when he sensed the lump in her throat. It would have been easier if she’d sounded cold instead of tender. “Richie,” she implored him, “this isn’t— this isn’t new news. I knew it was going to be on location when I got the role, but I didn’t—” 

She said several things that Richie didn’t hear. The song had ended, passed, and Richie was struggling to remember the name of the next one. Something familiar in passing by, not a favorite, but not something he’d never heard before. A dull sort of ringing pressed against his ears, blocking out her voice, something like a headache sinking its fingers into his brain. 

“You know I’d come with you, right?” He blurted out, cutting her off without meaning to. She blinked at him. “I could get a job up there, they’re big on coffee there, right? I could make coffee, that’s not hard. And I’m sure there's clubs I could perform at, it’s not that different from LA, really, it’s— it’s just—” 

The look on her face slowed his speech, slowed the time in the restaurant, changed the very quality of the air in the place. Resignation. 

“—colder.” 

His hands began to shake when she stroked a thumb over the back of the one she held, and he curled it into a fist to try and keep still. She tried to turn it over in her hand, her gaze trying desperately to pull his to it. He stared somewhere over her left shoulder, everything behind her blurred like a tight shot with a high aperture. 

Her voice lowered, soothing, comforting, but not losing that scratch of hurt to it. Like this pained her, even though Richie wanted to be selfish and think about how badly it was hurting him. “Richie, I think we’ve been going in different directions for a while, I think this is just sort of— a natural break.” 

His leg was bobbing violently under the table. Words tumbled around in his head and evaporated immediately like rubbing alcohol, more backing up in his throat and blocking it so nothing could get out. 

The place wasn’t packed, but it was public. He couldn’t cry here, it was too out in the open. He wasn’t, yet, but he felt like he was going to, he felt like any word he could get out would come with tears and he’d be helpless to stop it. 

“Richie?”

He shook his head quietly. It didn’t make sense to him. This wasn’t different _directions,_ this was just six months in a different city, it was temporary. He didn’t care what she wanted to do, he wanted her to be happy doing it, he wanted to be there to watch her succeed, and she—

“Yeah,” he said, suddenly, kind of clipped. “Right, yeah, we’ve—” couldn’t finish under the threat of tears. 

“Honey,” she said, and that hurt, that got his attention, because if she was saying these things she wasn’t allowed to call him that, not as of now, not anymore, and the look he shot her was so unintentionally venomous he watched her sink back a little in her seat. Her hand slid off his and curled softly on the table. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” 

“Yeah, Sandy, I’m not an idiot.” 

“I didn’t say that.” 

She was slipping out of his grasp. She must have been for a while and he was too blind to even notice it. Maybe it had been over for her for a while, maybe she’d been dragging her feet, waiting for this. For a kind excuse to slip away. 

The very thought of it hurt: cold and wretchedly painful. An exposed nerve in a broken front tooth chomping down on a glob of vanilla ice cream. Richie lifted a hand to his mouth, scrubbing across his lips and sniffing as he looked down at the table. Two bites out of his pancakes and he felt sick. He had the terrible urge to get mean, to snap at her, to ask her if she’d lied or strung him along or intended to kick him in the balls at the last second like this, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Someone had taken a melon baller and scraped out his chest, leaving neat, pink, perfectly circular pits in it, holes in his lungs and his chest and his ribs. 

_(I don’t care what they say about us anyway_

_I don’t care ‘bout that)_

A little clink redirected his attention. Her other hand had appeared on the table, her fingers uncurled around something small and gold, hand retreating to let Richie see. 

Apartment key, chain. 

So that was it. The room was spinning violently, and Richie had to reach under the table and lace his hands together to try and keep them from trembling, but the shakes had spread to his whole body. His nerves fired then went cold, and despite not having said anything else, despite not even being able to look at her, he felt tears brimming on his waterline. 

How humiliating was this? Getting dumped in broad daylight in the middle of some shit diner with good pancakes by a girl he was two seconds from asking to meet his parents, blindsided. Raw and weeping like an infected wound. He sniffed again and it was wetter: he had to squeeze his eyes shut. 

“I really want the best for you, Richie,” came her voice. 

_Wish you luck with the rest of your miserable life, you hopeless bastard,_ his thoughts supplied for her. Reading between lines that weren’t really there. He looked up just to move his head, fearing keeping too still would trigger the breakdown, the pathetic, cloying _no no no please don’t leave me_ bullshit that was threatening to spill over, that if he swallowed hard enough he could choke it down, but he only met the concerned and pitying gaze of a woman across the aisle from them and it shook him harder, heat climbing into his cheeks as he dug his nails into the backs of his hands and looked away. “No, I get it, Sandy,” he said, and it was choked up, sad and raw and hurt. 

The key looked like it would burn him if he touched it. 

His memory failed him quickly after that. There were some attempts at pleasantries, some attempts for both of them to appear mature and alright with this. Sandy sounded wounded by it, but decisive: Richie sounded like a kicked puppy, whining in place of words. 

He couldn’t remember exactly what it was she said last to him, her eyes rimmed with red when she shouldered her purse and finally stood up, leaving Richie and the spare key and the salad and the cold coffee and the pancakes to their business. Left a little cash for her half of the bill, despite not having eaten anything. He couldn’t recall whether she squeezed his shoulder or ruffled his hair or just tapped his arm as she left, but she touched him, somehow, left fingerprints on him he wasn’t going to easily be able to scrub off, and left. 

When the waitress swung by again, looking suddenly very awkward to find Richie alone with the food. He hadn’t completely broken quiet yet. Fragile, centimeters from it, seemingly. He wanted, he thought suddenly, to ask for a slice of pie or something, maybe chocolate cake if they had it, but the moment he opened his mouth he felt vomit rushing up the back of his throat and grabbed for the nearest thing, dumped it over his pancakes in a desperate and harebrained attempt to reduce the mess, and threw up directly in the salad bowl.

**LINCOLN, NEBRASKA - PORTLAND, MAINE**

“Jesus, poor guy. Is he doing okay?” 

“He sounds like a wreck, Ben, I wish I had the time to fly down again and check in on him, but I don’t think I could swing it right now. He was head over heels for her, I don’t know what happened. He seemed like he was doing really well, then just all of a sus-sudden—”

**ALBANY, NEW YORK - FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA**

“You’ve got to be f— _kidding_ me, Mike.” 

“The librarian left me in her will.” 

“She was a crazy old widow with no children, Mike, this isn’t some destiny thing, this is a d—”

“A what, Stanley?” 

“A— bad idea. You love Florida.”

“I do.” 

“And, what, you love Derry more?” 

“I have a feeling, Stanley.” 

“You and your _feelings,_ Mike, I swear to god. Your feelings are going to get you or one of us killed someday.” 

“That sounds a touch dramatic, Stan, be reasonable.” 

“Says the unreasonable one here.” 

**QUEENS, NEW YORK - ALBANY, NEW YORK**

“Yes— well, no, I— actually have to go, sorry, my mom’s calling me.” 

“Eddie, _wait—_ hell.” 

**CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - ALBANY, NEW YORK**

“Stanley, I don’t know about this, I think you should talk to him.” 

“I _have_ been talking to him, do you think I haven’t tried to talk him out of it? I think it’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard out of his mouth, and Eddie’s come up with some _really_ stupid ideas in the time I’ve known him.”

“Would he listen to Richie?” 

“That would be a complete mess, Bev, think about it for a second.” 

“No, you’re right. God, I hate to think about the two of them getting distant, from what I hear Richie could really use somebody right now.”

“I know.” 

“What do we do about Eddie?” 

“We can’t _do_ anything, he’s gonna do whatever the hell he wants. He’d _better_ not fucking do it. For his sake, I hope to god he comes to his senses before he pulls the trigger.” 

**PORTLAND, MAINE - CHICAGO, ILLINOIS**

“God, what a mess.” 

“Did you hear about Mike?” 

“Yeah. I don’t like it.” 

“Neither do I.”

“...but?”

“But you’re thinking about going with him, aren’t you?” 

“Yeah. I’m thinking about it.” 

“Bill.” 

“I know.” 

**LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - PORTLAND, MAINE**

“No, I’m not _drunk,_ fuck you, man. Are you high?” 

“Well fuck you too. Glad to hear you’re doing fine as well.”

**FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA - LINCOLIN, NEBRASKA**

“Didn’t you say Stan sounded like he wanted to propose to Patty soon? What happened to that?” 

“Oh, you haven’t heard?” 

“Oh, no.” 

“No, no, they didn’t break up, but— maybe ask Stan next time you call. He knows what’s going on best, I think.” 

**23** **NOVEMBER, 1999**

**ALBANY, NEW YORK**

**8:29PM**

“I hate them,” Stan sighed, tipping his head back over Patty’s thigh into her lap. He’d set the phone down a moment ago, head chock full of words and numbers he didn’t need up there at the moment. His eyes closed when she sank her fingers into his hair, lifting her book to accommodate him. 

“You care about them more than anything else in this world, Stanley.”

“Doesn’t mean I also can’t hate them. Hate is a much stronger emotion than indifference, it takes caring to properly hate. Trust me.” He plucked at the hem of her dress, blinking up at her through the hair that fell over his brow. “And not _anything_ else.” 

She rapped his shoulder with the book, grinning, then returned to reading. 

Stanley Uris had a plan. Stanley was very pleased with his plan, proud of the careful calculations he’d made and was sure of. He’d taken big steps to ensure things would go smoothly and good and well, and, god willing, they would. 

He did, truly, if not so secretly, love his friends, but he was _absolutely_ going to be locked up for life for pre-meditated murder if one of them dare fuck up this one thing for him. He trusted them, but this one thing had to go absolutely right. 

He would make sure it did. It was, in his humble opinion, the most important Stanley Uris would ever do, thank you very much, and he was going to do it right.

**1 DECEMBER 1999**

**WEST BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY**

**6:73PM**

High school diploma: check.

Get into college: check 

Girlfriend: check

College degree: check

Nine-to-five job: check

Move out (finally, fucking finally): check

This was the logical next step, Eddie, told himself. Just before _house_ and _2.5 kids_. This was the progression of life, this was the next big stepping stone.

So why the fuck did it feel so wrong? 

Why the hell was his pasta cold when it had seemingly just gotten to the table? Why did he still not feel like an adult despite ordering a bottle of red wine for the two of them and pronouncing the (French) name right and showing his horizontal ID which he had to thumb past a company-issued medical insurance card to get to in his leather (pretty sure it was real leather, it was kind of expensive) wallet? Why did everything feel like it was moving so treacherously fast when Eddie had, time and time again, insisted on taking things glacially slow? Why did he still, even after moving out of her apartment, feel like he was stuck under his mother’s roof? Why had he spent so much money on something so small, something he wasn’t even sure she’d like, something weighing like a rock in his jacket pocket, burning against his hip, laying in wait for him to buck up and get it the fuck over with already? 

Why was he doing this? 

How long, really, was a 40 hour drive anyway? When you have nothing to lose? When he only had things to run away from here and something to run to there?

What the fuck was he doing? 

Why the fuck was he going through with it anyway? 

**9 DECEMBER 1999**

**LOS ANGELES**

**11:16PM**

It took Richie exactly six months after moving in to regret deciding to live alone. 

What a brilliant idea at the time, getting his own place, a place where he could fit double bed with a frame and everything, where his roommates wouldn’t wake him up at all hours of the night coming home from wherever the fuck they ended up on the weekends, where he had four walls and one door to his bedroom and he and Sandy could sleep undisturbed without fear of intrusion. He’d wanted his own space, wanted a place that could evolve, eventually, maybe, god willing, into his and Sandy’s place. Their place. 

The drawer, still empty, in his dresser, leaving behind nothing but her scent, was a tangible and terrible presence now. The other two in the dresser crammed were with his shit, his sort of useless shit, clothes and odds and ends and whatever the fuck else he deemed worthy of keeping around in his life, shit that passed listlessly through his hands when he shifted through his drawers for socks on the off chance that he was going out. There was a cassette player in there somewhere, stowed carefully away, with a tape still in the dock. 

Some bright idea now, living alone. Drinking alone on his couch, staring at the blank TV, which sat on a straining TV tray meant for dinner plates and not the actual thing. One of the antennae was a little crooked, the signal had been shit lately, but Richie mostly used the VCR player anyway. 

Ned would have sat down and watched something with him, Randy would have been nearby, slightly disinterested in the movie but supportive enough to keep Richie’s glass (and his own) full so he wouldn’t be riding solo, Javier would have brought him some sticky sweet pastry from the bakery when he got off work and maybe asked him if he wanted to go get sunburnt and baked on the beach over the weekend. 

Beverly Marsh would have offered him a cigarette. 

Richie flicked the cap of his bottle off once more and sighed, settling tears that threatened to push out of his sad little face at the thought of sharing a cigarette with Beverly Marsh. 

He lifted the bottle to his lips and made a face when he swallowed a little too much, coughing. Maybe it was a little over dramatic to be sitting in silence in his apartment drinking terribly cheap whisky he didn’t really like on his cracked pleather couch he found on the side of the road and had been so excited about when he moved in, but it felt kind of like some weird montage in an arthouse film: wide shot of some greasy middle-aged everyman, depressed, listless, unaware he is about to embark on some life changing and exciting venture that would bring meaning back into his miserable little life once again. Richie, admittedly, was not middle aged, (couldn’t even fathom that: imagine, him, forty. He’d turn forty in, what, 2015? Not a real year. _Forty,_ probably with a receding hairline. A chilling and terrible thought he didn’t want to dwell on) and, truthfully, felt as if his prospects at the moment could not be described as remotely thrilling. Nothing quite exciting or life-changing headed his way, not from his tear-blurry perspective. 

Headlights passed and cast black shadows on the wall behind the boxy television, and Richie followed the amber glow with his eyes, sighing. He turned to get up off the couch, to maybe get himself something to eat, as he figured it was unwise and a little pathetic to starve himself over getting dumped almost a full month ago, when something caught his eye. 

The light had been blinking for days. Richie let the messages pile up, stacking like the smooth rocks of guilt that towered in his gut thinking about it. Words unheard on the machine, words someone cared to send to him and that he’d ignored. 

Might as well sink a little deeper into the mud if he’d resigned himself to wallowing for the night. 

Settling in, Richie kicked his legs up onto the couch and leaned back against one arm, pulling the machine onto his chest and swirling his finger around the playback button for a moment before pressing it down resolutely with one finger. 

“Hey, Richie, it’s Mom,” came Maggie from a few days ago and a few hundred miles away. “I just wanted to check in on you sweetheart, but I hope you’re not picking up because you’re keeping busy like I told you to.” 

He’d called home a couple days after it happened, thinking his dad would pick up, but the moment he’d heard Maggie’s voice he’d finally broken down and cried about it like a little kid the way he could only do with his mother on the other line. Had finally confessed to feeling abandoned and kicked in the kidneys and and generally miserably heartbroken, feeling somehow no better when she reassured him the first time was the worst. 

This was the _first_ time, then, huh? Meant more to come? 

The woman got married at 19, for fucks sake, what did she know about this kind of heartbreak?

Maggie’s message continued. Richie let his eyes fall shut to the sound of her voice. “So I just talked to your grandparents and they said they’re going to make it out here for Christmas, and you know how much it would mean to them if you’d come up to say hi.”

Went’s voice swam through the receiver, distant. “Is that Richie?” 

“Yeah, honey, it’s a message—” 

“Hey, buddy! Hang in there!” 

“That was your dad,” Maggie clarified, as if Richie couldn’t tell. He felt a hot tear slide down his cheek and scrubbed it off, puffing out a little scoff at himself. Any day, now, he’d stop feeling gutted like an unfortunate trout on the regular. _Any_ fucking day now would be great. He was tired of crying at the drop of a hat. “He’s worried about you, sweetheart, I am too, and we’d love to finally see you. Call me if you need anything, okay? Love you, kiddo.” 

Richie pecked at the next button. 

“Hey, Tricky Dick.”

“Hi, Randy,” Richie muttered aloud, uselessly. 

“So there’s this thing at Ryan’s this weekend and he has this sister I think you should—”

Next. 

Mark from Tortoiseshell, asking if he wanted to fill a slot for him on Friday night. Richie squinted, thinking. It was Saturday. Whoops. Next time, maybe. 

Next. 

A voice he didn’t recognize. No one important. No one he wanted to talk to. Richie let the message play aimlessly for a moment, taking a much more careful sip of whisky so as not to choke or spill all over himself and dropped one foot to the floor. No way was he letting himself sleep out here, not with his bed ten feet away, but he felt just tipsy enough for a quick power nap. Could get up and eat later, whenever he woke up. A frozen pizza sounded just _killer_ right then. Would sound equally killer at 3AM. There was one benefit to living alone: he could take down the whole pizza himself without Javier lingering on the fringes of the kitchen to steal a couple slices. He realized a minute into it that the message had repeated, sighed. He patted his pockets, hoping to find a pack of cigarettes in there somewhere. Just a lighter. 

Next. 

“Hey, man, it’s uh, it’s been a while. Is this thing on?”

Richie jumped as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over his head. 

It was Eddie. 

Richie had precious seconds to come halfway to terms with the weight of guilt that came with all the calls he’d promised to (and then failed to) return before Eddie let out a halfhearted and wheezy snicker on the message at his own bad joke and cleared his throat. Richie scrambled to sit up, spilling a little liquor on his shirt and nearly fumbling the machine into his lap. 

“Um, anyway,” Voicemail Eddie continued, sounding robotic and hollow and so, so far away. Richie’s hands twitched as if he could touch him if he just dared to reach out. “It’s been a while, I guess. Listen, man, I know you’ve been busy. Bill— I mean I think Bill saw you last, that was uh. Man, I guess that was kind of a while ago too?” 

Richie could picture him in his kitchen, his old kitchen in that apartment, winding his finger in the dark green phone cord, shoulder knocked against the wall and hip against the counter, searching for words. Richie actually checked the answering machine to make sure the message wasn’t live, to make sure there was no way he could just pick up the phone and interrupt him and say something as Eddie prattled on, sounding a little aimless in a way that sent cold dread into the pit of Richie’s stomach. 

“I’m not really. Uh. Anyway, just wanted to check in on you, it’s— I already said that. Damn. Um.” 

Richie’s mouth twitched like he wanted to grin. Fondness seeped into the widening cracks of his usual late night misery, his eyes falling shut. The couch didn’t feel as lonely, suddenly, not with the litany of Eddie’s voice on the other line, with no expectation of Richie’s response for the duration of the message. 

“I hope things are good, you know? Things are good here, actually, things— things are okay on my end. I guess I can kind of assume that things are going well for you over there, if you’re busy. Especially with you, Jesus, I swear to _god_ when you’re not fully engaged you make it everyone else’s problem.” 

Eddie made a little sound under his breath like a ghost of a snicker and Richie took a slow breath. He let the image of him simmer in his mind's eye, Eddie hanging out in a soft blue sweater in that kitchen that smelled like beer and pizza and Eddie’s preferred brand of dish soap. He was allowed to exist there for tonight, for as long as the message lasted, perfect in Richie’s mind, preserved in his memory in a time three years ago. A spontaneous road trip which had landed Richie at his front door, uncharacteristically nervous about possibly being turned away into the cold November night, only for Eddie to bundle him up and take him for ice cream then take him home, safe and sound. 

Richie stretched his legs out, heels on the floor. Heshifted his weight to the edge of the couch cushion, sprawled at a dramatic angle across it, hand protectively keeping the answering machine from slipping from his grasp, cradling it, almost. 

Eddie’s robotic voice sighed, and Richie felt something in his voice change. 

“So I guess— Um. Man. I kinda promised myself I was only gonna ask this if you picked up but you— seem busy lately. So I guess it’s okay I mean I hope it’s okay if— it’s just important.”

His eyes snapped open, staring down the machine as if he could see Eddie through it, see him worry his lip between his teeth like he did. Richie hadn’t prayed in a long time, but in the million year pause Eddie took to gather himself, he tipped his head back.

“Please, Jesus fucking Christ, come on, one good thing—” Richie started.

“And it’s good, it’s a good thing it’s not like, I mean no one’s _dying_ don’t, don’t get your panties all fucked up, but— I’ll just leave the message, you can get back to me when you can. Sometime. But soon, preferably, this is actually time sensitive, for once.” 

“Rip off the fucking bandaid, Kaspbrak,” Richie mumbled, jostling the thing slightly in his lap.

The deep breath. It sounded like Eddie was perched on the end of a high dive, looking down at water that would crumple him just as well as concrete if he dared jump. 

“We’re getting together soon,” he said, and he sounded _almost_ cheery about that. _Almost._ The almost worried Richie. “We’re um, the guys, I mean, Bev can’t make it, which— which sucks, but I hope you can, it’s nothing big, Ben’s trying to make it into a big deal but it’s really not, it’s just— I—” 

Something, Richie could tell from the get go, was wrong. Eddie didn’t sound right, Eddie stopped sounding like himself maybe halfway through. The optimism in his voice was completely fabricated, monotone. His voice pitched up when he got excited, when he was actually looking forward to something, his voice sounded like sunshine if sunshine had a sound, and here it sounded closer to a funeral march. Richie wanted to scream, wanted to ask him to give him some code word if he was being held against his will and needed rescuing, but it was no use talking to the machine. 

It was hardly audible. “Oh, man,” Eddie said, under his breath, and he sounded defeated. 

“Spit it _out—”_

Eddie took one last breath, seemingly determined to get it right on the first go. “Richie, I called to tell you I’m getting married.” 

_“Fuck!”_

Car crash. Briar patch. Flesh eating badgers. The works. Richie slipped off the edge of the couch and onto the floor, one shoe scooting back the beat up coffee table into the abyss that the rest of the room became. The bottom of his bottle clinked hardly against the wood and Richie let go of it in favor of slipping down onto his back, head pushed forward at an uncomfortable angle by the baseboard of the couch. The hardwood was cool, ice cold, and Richie thought maybe if he just pressed his weight fully into it the boards would open up like a hungry maw and envelop him into the floor forever. Swallow him whole and digest him, dissolve him nice and slow. He’d already been drowning in high tide for _weeks,_ arms up and screaming for help, and this was a speedboat racing by just to swamp him with the wake, a big personal _fuck you!_

Mercilessly, Eddie’s message prattled on. “Myra, I— I’m pretty sure I told you about her when we started dating, she uh—”

“Oh, twist the fucking _knife,_ man, come on,” Richie moaned, letting his head hit the floor once he was fully flat on his back, will punched out of him. He was taking on water. 

“—we’re engaged, and this— it’s not the bachelor party, I don’t even know if I really want one? Of those?”

He sounded _lost._ He didn’t even sound like Eddie. And fuck, Richie wanted dearly to be angry, to be resentful and bitter and mad and fed the fuck up with this whole thing, but the first thing his heart did was ache for him. His voice was miserable and rushed, as if he didn’t want to be saying these things, as if it was the last thing he wanted to talk about on the phone, this message borne out of sheer necessity to state the fact, and maybe it was wishful thinking, but— fuck. Eddie didn’t sound too sharp. And it was killing Richie, bleeding him out here on the floor alone in his shabby little apartment he could hardly fucking afford, miserable and lonely and wishing he could step into the answering machine and shrink down, race across the telephone wires that laced the country, pop up in Eddie’s room and just as the poor motherfucker what the fuck was going on. 

He felt dizzy and dry, chest rising and falling rapidly, thoughts tangled. 

Getting married. Myra. Getting together. Not bachelor party? 

What was his part in this? Would it even be good form to show up at this point? 

“But it’s— I mean if I did I— fuck, I’m sorry if this is weird—”

“You’re the weirdest fucker I know—” he half sobbed, though no tears came, it felt like some confession, some fondness ever present on his tongue. _“God,_ I fucking—“

“I know it’s been a long time, but um. I know you’re busy and this might not be possible with you all the way out there in LA and everything—”

“I’m fucking booked for my own pity party every fucking night, Eds, twenty four fucking seven, sorry, bud—”

“— but if you wanted to be my best man I’d just. I’d appreciate it.”

_Oh._

“A lot.”

_Oh Jesus. Oh, fuck._

“I know that’s a lot to ask.”

He was begging. Richie could hear it, loud and clear, Eddie was _begging._ God, was he lucky he couldn’t see his face, his big brimming brown eyes that dissolved every last iota of resolve in Richie’s body aimed up at him, miserable and beaten down like his voice suggested, just begging Richie for _anything._ Richie finally let go of the answering machine, letting it slide off his hip and rest at an angle against him half on the floor, in favor of shoving his glasses up and pressing his face fully into his palms just to whine. “It’s not, Eddie, Jesus Christ,” Richie said to his empty apartment, voice ragged. It was his apartment, no one could tell him no. “It’s not even fucking _enough,_ fuck.” He picked his head up for a second and nearly sat up, but his lead body held him down and he dropped back flat to the ground, letting his arms fall out on either side of him and his head fall with a thump and a wince. “Ow.” 

Eddie was wrapping things up, the damage done, the words said, recorded, audio pressed forever into the tape on Richie’s answering machine. 

“So um. Hopefully you get to listen to this before New Years, Stan’s honestly got me kinda buying into that Y2K shit now, so don’t let this get like deleted if that actually happens—” it sounded like he wanted to laugh, wanted to make some joke, but couldn’t find it in him, “so, if I don’t hear back from you by then I— maybe Bill can call you. Or Stan. Um. Or if you’re just too busy— I get it.” 

Richie whined aloud. His heart had turned into a pincushion, searing sharp little stabs hitting the mark with every word, with every hint in Eddie’s tone that things had gone completely to shit over there and Richie hadn’t so much as bothered to check up on him. 

Best man. Some best fucking man he was. 

“Let me know. Um. Yeah, I’ll see ya, I mean I hop-”

There was a beep, and Richie froze up completely. One hand had fallen back onto the machine. Onto the delete button. Swearing fluently, he shot up and dragged the thing back into his lap, hands flying up and away from it uselessly. Frantic, he pressed the play button, hearing his mother come back on from the first message, his hands trembling as he looked over the simple little buttons for some way to recover it, to get Eddie’s voice back, to just hear that last little syllable, little breath, to fucking let him finish, to see if there was any more, to, for fucks sake, to hear him bust up laughing in that horrible dorky little laugh of his and the stupid, shit eating _Gotcha, Trashmouth!_

Tears of fear and frustration and everything else going on sprang back into his eyes and made it hard to see as he scrambled on the floor for the chance of it, the chance to hear the rest that _had_ to be there. He mashed wildly at the buttons, voice growing hoarse as he swore at the fucking thing, message light blinking benignly back at him as if nothing was wrong. He hissed when he heard the tape squeal, thinking for a moment all was lost, and then:

“Hey, man, it’s uh, it’s been a while. Is this thing on?”

“Oh thank fucking god,” Richie sighed, slumping back against the couch again, spent. 

The second time was just as bad, if not worse. Each note of Eddie’s voice dug into him like blunt nails. It was the unfortunate burden of knowing him so well, of knowing Eddie absolutely in and out to the point that he could hear a forced smile without so much as getting a glimpse of his face. The nervous bob of his throat every time he swallowed, the shake in his sighs, the tiny shifts of static as he shifted the phone to the other ear, the weird interference when he toyed with the cord. Richie sat through it a second time, heart revving at the end when he caught up with where he left off, and all he was left with was a date. They were set, Eddie’s tense voice recited, to meet up in January, in New York, just to see each other. To catch up. 

_It’s not a big deal, Rich, don’t sweat it._

The gravity of it tried to settle into his brain, oil and water unable to properly mix. 

Eddie was engaged. Eddie, the boy Richie had known since before either of them could so much as _comprehend_ algebra, was getting married. The boy he’d run out on the last time he’d seen him in person. And the guys would be there, this wasn’t a one on one affair, a chance for some kind of redemption. Life was rushing at them at a breakneck pace, and Eddie had the courtesy to reach out backwards at the risk of dislocating his shoulder to make sure Richie didn’t get completely left behind, a kindness he didn’t rightly deserve. 

He sat on the floor when the end of the message beeped after a third time, tipsy, dizzy, in slight disbelief, the sudden hush of the apartment leaving him fully alone all at once. 

Richie just had to survive the turn of the millennium and a plane ride and he would be face to face again with Eddie Kaspbrak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) yeah
> 
> idk about y’all but i need a fuckin drink
> 
> songs referenced:  
> Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran  
> The Scientist- Coldplay**  
> Buddy Holly -Weezer  
> Temptation (7” Version) - New Order
> 
> **(another one that didn’t come out until 2002 but it’s the one song that makes me cry on command and if you really want it to be it’s the song playing on eddies radio when he’s sitting at dairy queen)
> 
> beautiful [fanart](https://reddierambling.tumblr.com/post/638887764893499392/this-is-my-favorite-scene-from-one-of-my-favorite)  
> from the last scene in this chapter by the wonderful [@reddierambling](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/reddierambling)/[@chef_corn](https://www.instagram.com/chef_corn/)!


	23. IS CHAOS THEORY THE THING WITH THE BUTTERFLIES OR IS THAT SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY?

**10 JANUARY 2000**

**NEW YORK CITY**

**10:47 PM**

It wasn’t quite yet snowing when Richie’s plane landed, delayed because of the storm clouds gathering high above New York. 

_“What if we switched names?”_

_Richie looked over as he tore another chunk of grass up from the earth. He shook the clods of dirt from the roots and examined them over his face, trying not to get soil on his glasses. “Why the hell would we do that?”_

_Eddie shrugged. He was more caddy corner than next to him, but Richie could feel the shift of his narrow shoulders rather than see it. “I dunno, it could be funny.”_

_They were about eleven years old, laying on their backs in itchy, sweet-smelling Spring grass, waiting for the others to arrive at a meeting point they used to have a name for. Richie’s radio sang idly from a tree branch nearby. He started peeling the blades of grass in his hands, tearing them as evenly down the middle as he could, the fragments of them fluttering down around his face as he went._

_Eddie continued. “It would just throw everybody off. If I started going by your name and you went by my name. All our teachers would think we were in the wrong class next year and our moms would be really confused.”_

_When Eddie turned his head, Richie was giving him a curious look. His big brown eyes widened, searching him, imploring._

_“Look, Eds, I usually find your little antics all kinds of chuckalicious—”_

_“Ugh.”_

_“—but you’re losing me on this one.”_

_“Well what if we just switched last names?” Eddie asked, propping himself up on his elbows and twisting slightly to look at him. “I saw Greta Bowie writing ‘Greta Anderson’ in her notebook last week, and I know she’s friends with Paul Anderson.”_

_Richie pushed his glasses up. “Eds, that’s because she likes Paul Anderson.”_

_“No it’s not,” he said, quick, defensive. “Why would it mean that?”_

_“Because that’s what girls do, girls change their last names when they get married so they scribble their name all over with the name of the boy they like. To see what it would sound like if they got married.”_

_Eddie’s face, sunkissed with freckles, burned pink. His eyebrows scrunched together for a moment, taking time to mull it over. “Well— we’re not girls and we’re not getting married to each other, so I don’t see why we can’t do it. It’d be for a prank, not like that.”_

_Richie propped himself up then too, looking Eddie over. The scheme didn’t make much sense, neither did Eddie’s harping on it. Something felt unsettled in his belly, like butterflies, but not quite. He didn’t get butterflies like that, not even around the girls in their fifth grade class. “You wanna walk around calling yourself Eddie Tozier?” he asked, careful about it for some reason._

_It was like this often. That walking on eggshells feeling. A delicate little robin’s egg in his clumsy adolescent hands, hands that moved too fast and too often and had a tendency to break things when he wasn’t careful. As opposed to Eddie’s: careful, clever. Fixing things, building things, he loved to put things back together. These things Richie observed about Eddie he didn’t about anyone else, these moments with him that felt important somehow. Hot, lazy, do-nothing summer afternoons. Something Richie’s mind couldn’t leave alone, some tortuous thought of_ cherish this, savor this. _Things Eddie talked about that seemingly came out of nowhere, that sometimes made the back of Richie’s neck feel hot and prickly like he was nervous or scared when he had nothing to reasonably be nervous or scared about. Like that too often._

_“I don’t see anything wrong with it.” Eddie kicked at a scraggly clump of grass, the laces of his sneakers untied and browning at the ends where they dragged in the dirt. His skinny ankles bore pale tan lines where his socks had slid down. “And you’d be Richie Kaspbrak, we’d just switch.”_

_Something about the idea frustrated Richie. It was childish maybe, he thought, at eleven they were too grown for those stupid kinds of pranks and onto grander schemes. But at the same time, maybe Eddie was onto something. Maybe he was always onto something that Richie was missing. Richie was allowed to think this way around him, about him, without the other boys around. To consider him more, hear him out rather than shooting him down when something he said sounded frivolous or outlandish. Eddie had a lot of ideas. Richie liked them more than he cared to admit in front of an audience._

_“Why?” he asked, more genuinely curious this time. “I just don’t think anybody’s gonna buy it.”_

_“I don’t know, Richie, I’m bored,” Eddie said, looking down. His careful fingers plucked a flower from the clover carpeting the ground around them, Richie watching his nail bed turn white as he twisted the stem and rotated it, not looking at him. “Just a stupid thought.”_

_“Christ—”_

Richie startled himself when a car honked behind his taxi, yanking him out of his daydreams. He jolted, looking around frantically as if caught doing something wrong.

“Someone’s tense. You’re not running from something, are you, pal?” The cabbie asked good naturedly, glancing momentarily over his shoulder at Richie, coiled and tense in the backseat. 

When he thought about it, he did look maybe a tad suspicious.

The flight itself had unsettled him; Richie had never been on an airplane before, had been trapped in a claustrophobic tin can for over five hours with nothing but his stewing thoughts and his threadbare backpack, crossing time zones at breakneck speed and landing hours later than he logically should have. The very concept freaked him out. Moving so fast you either gained or lost hours in either direction. Like a bastardized sort of time travel that tasted like stale miniature pretzels and sparkling water to soothe the air sickness. He was fidgety, having thought too much on the way there about more than just the lost hours, fretting endlessly now about the coming ones. 

Then there was his state of dress. Should have thought to wear a coat. January in LA was mild, his t-shirt and jeans had been perfectly appropriate for the weather when he left for LAX earlier that day. Now he was left shivering even in the warmth of the cab, arms wrapped tight around himself. He’d packed distractedly and had forgotten completely to consider the weather in New York. He was going to be lucky if he’d so much as remembered socks. 

“Kid?” 

“Yeah no— not running from anybody. No recent mob entanglements. All good back here.” 

His mouth was dry. Richie rolled his shoulders and took a breath, picking at a hangnail. Tension surrounded him like a storm cloud, pressing against the insides of the cab and making it feel stuffy. He hated his impulse to make small talk, but the song on the radio was making him unreasonably anxious. 

_(I’m taking a ride with my best friend_

_I hope he never lets me down again)_

He needed to fill space. 

“To something, actually,” Richie said, just making conversation, trying to force himself to sound upbeat about it. His own voice was seldom a comfort, but anything to mask the odd unrest in the back of the cab might help. He took a slow breath, trying to arrange his long legs comfortably in the impossibly small backseat. “If I’m lucky.” 

The cabbie snorted, half amused. _“To_ something. So a girl?”

“No, just— seeing some friends.” 

“Whatever you say,” the cabbie replied, Richie catching his smirk in the rearview mirror. It stung his pride, somehow, the knowing grin that wasn’t as educated as the cabbie might think. Richie was in a bitch of a situation, it couldn’t be boiled down to something as simple as seeing some girl. His face warmed as he took another settling breath, lost in thought when the cabbie spoke up once more. “Headed to the Grandview, right?” 

Something cold dropped down Richie’s spine, making him stiffen again. He shook his head to clear it, suddenly clouded by memory that wouldn’t rightfully surface. “What?” 

“I said the Best Western, you’re headed to the Best Western on 49th, yeah?”

“Oh.” Richie swallowed a lump in his throat. “Yeah. That’s the one.” A reservation for a bed he’d undoubtedly get no sleep in with the next day looming over his head. 

He hadn’t mentioned to any of the guys that he was arriving a night early. Hadn’t asked anyone else when they were showing up, hadn’t made plans to see them before the dinner. Had the address for the restaurant and the time of the reservation written down, but that was all. 

It all felt too indirect, too vague. None of it felt real yet. Richie had doubted the legitimacy of his plane ticket up until he was settling into his seat, amazed that he was on his way to something that felt impossible. He hadn’t so much as spoken to Eddie yet, either. Had, as was the new normal, left him a voicemail, this time from his parents’ house and with their encouragement, a belated confirmation that he’d be there. 

Had, deftly or not, avoided the question of being best man.

Hadn’t felt like a very good one recently.

**11 JANUARY 2000**

**6:34PM**

Every time Eddie saw a glimpse of the very modest diamond on Myra’s left hand, it made his stomach seize up. This only worsened when he considered his own fingers, bare, unmarked by any symbol of commitment, that feeling oddly symbolic in and of itself. He wrung his hands restlessly where he stood, glad she wasn’t there, his nerves swallowing the excitement that would have usually bubbled in his chest at the idea of seeing his friends in the same place again. 

Mike, angel that he was, had been trying to keep Eddie’s mind occupied with light conversation since he’d arrived. He’d been early, meeting Eddie at his apartment to say hello before the rest of them showed up, and it had helped more than Eddie cared to admit. 

The subject of conversation once the two of them had made it to the restaurant and met up with Stanley, however, did nothing to soothe Eddie. 

“So you don’t start wearing a ring until the wedding?” 

The lobby of the steakhouse, though not altogether that crowded, felt congested. Eddie glanced down at his bare hands and shook his head, knowing Mike meant no harm in asking. But Eddie couldn’t help the way it soured his stomach. “No,” he sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets to get them out of his sight. “She wears the engagement ring, then we both get a band at the ceremony.” Eddie hadn’t known that until recently. He’d had to ask his aunts, who, though never married themselves, were overjoyed to overshare every little detail about love and marriage and honeymoons they had on hand. 

Needless to say, it was more than Eddie had asked for. 

“Are you going to wear your dad’s ring?” 

Eddie nodded slowly, only half hearing Mike as the color started to drain from his face. He’d been having vivid nightmares recently of his father’s wedding band being obscenely too big for him, of it slipping off his hand during the ceremony and rolling away, never to be found again. Sometimes it grew so large that it engulfed all of his fingers, his hand, and slid down onto his wrist where it locked into place like a handcuff. Eddie took a shuddering breath, trying not to recall the dreams where it then tightened and cut off his circulation, fingers swollen and purple. “Where the fuck is everybody?” he asked distractedly. 

“Reservation’s for 6:45. I told them to be here at 6:30,” Stan said from his place on one of the waiting benches beside the host’s desk. He pushed back his sleeve to check his watch. “They’ve still got ten minutes.” He set his elbows back on his knees, pressed primly together, setting his chin resolutely in his palms. His khakis were maybe an inch too short on him. 

Stan had been fairly quiet since their arrival, tone clipped whenever he spoke. Something about it unnerved Eddie more than he cared to admit, made his neck feel itchy under the stiff collar of his shirt. Guilt was a familiar, if not welcome, sensation for him as of late.

“Ben’ll be here soon,” Mike said, placing a wide palm reassuringly on Eddie’s shoulder. “And you know Bill and Richie.” They’d get there when they got there. He gave him a kind smile, though something in his eyes betrayed his own worry. 

“Unfortunately,” Stanley muttered, half under his breath. It earned him a scathing look from Mike which Eddie didn’t catch, fidgeting with the buttons on his shirt, eyes trained on the doors. 

He’d debated wearing a tie, deciding at the last minute he wanted this to feel as casual as possible given the circumstances, but he was starting to regret it. He desperately needed something to do with his hands. He felt Mike’s hand slip off his shoulder as he crossed the little lobby to speak to Stanley. Their voices sounded distant, underwater, white noise buzzing in the back of Eddie’s head. 

Eddie found himself standing alone, sidestepping another dinner group and feeling sweat prickle against the back of his neck. There was too wide a window for worry, too much time to consider that something must have happened to at least one of them, that someone had changed their mind and wasn’t going to show. That Eddie was going to get stood up by one or three of his very best friends, that Mike and Stan would get fed up with waiting and leave Eddie on his own, that none of them really wanted to be here for this anyway, it wasn’t like there was anything really worth celebrating tonight as it was. 

Heart in his throat, his feet got him moving before he was consciously aware of it, brain urging him to get fresh air immediately, to just get out for a second before the walls closed in. He shifted his coat where it lay across his arm, not bothering to slip it back on as he headed for the doors.

“Eddie?” Mike’s voice still sounded far away, concerned, drifting in Eddie’s wake.

“Im j— outside.” 

Without another thought, Eddie pushed through the front door into the biting January wind. It was already dark, storm clouds hovering high over the skyscrapers and reflecting back the cold urban light and settling a haze over the evening.

Mike and Stanley didn’t chase him, not yet, giving him much needed space. His breath came quick. Not harsh or strained, not yet, not life threatening. He was stressed, but not quite panicking. Eddie worried that could turn quickly if anything else went wrong tonight. 

But nothing _had_ gone wrong. Not yet, at least. Beverly not being there sucked, sure, but this weekend was the only one that worked for five out of six of them. Bill, Ben, and Richie weren’t even technically late yet, Mike and Stanley had made it there safely, the reservation hadn’t gotten lost, no one had died in a fiery wreck, the earth hadn’t simply opened up and swallowed Eddie whole, yet the whole _thing_ felt wrong. Eddie was in a constant state of wanting to see all of them, it shouldn’t feel this _off._ He’d been dying to see the Losers again, especially over the last couple months when he felt further away from everyone than he ever had, distant in the wake of the relationship and the engagement and all that time spent with his mother and all his energy being devoted to work and Myra and wedding and appearances and Jesus fucking _Christ_ if one of the guys in the office made one more passing fucking joke, one more snickering _Hows the boyfriend, Kaspbrak?_ at the water cooler Eddie was really going to snap and it wasn’t going to be pretty he was already fraying as it was and choking down so much on the fucking regular that if he heard one more fucking side comment it wasn’t going to be fucking pretty—

Maybe this whole thing was a mistake. Maybe he should have waited to see them, maybe waited to invite them here until the wedding where they’d just be faces among all the other guests, some friends of the groom, not the most essential people in Eddie’s life, here, now, having to witness him at his worst, jumbled and exhausted and _weird,_ god did he feel fucking weird. He’d been Novocain numb for a while, steady injections from Sonia’s hushed whispers in his ear over the past couple years wearing him down and out and numb. He felt weedy and frail and like he was being lead around by his tie and not bothering to fight it, and god almighty was he terrified for any of his friends to recognize that in him. That weakness, that lack of moxie all the rest of them had, Eddie Kaspbrak with his balls in someone else’s purse as always. 

The air was bitter outside, numbing Eddie’s fingers but making him feel painfully alert. He paced in a short line outside the building, wondering if it would even be worth trying to pump himself up for this. Part of him just wanted it to be over, wanted to go back to his apartment and savor one of his dwindling precious nights in bed alone before he’d have to fight for the comforter for the rest of his life, wanted to run away from this.

Petrified that maybe one of his friends would get through to him that this was a terrible fucking idea and convince him he was going to have to buck up and dig his bleeding fingers into the frozen dirt yank up his deeply unsatisfactory life at the root to start over from square one. 

He didn’t think he could do it. Not this far into it. He’d made his bed. Now he had to share it. But everything lately felt so fucked and wrong that one little puff could blow the whole house down. 

Mike appeared outside the doors, glancing left to right before he spotted Eddie, and by the time he was making his way over to check on him, Richie Tozier stepped out of a cab.

_Eddie stood on his toes in the cramped harvest gold kitchen, palms pressed to the chipped counter. He could smell the grease and propane from the old gas stove, mingling with the blooming flowers on the redbud tree next door. The window over the sink was open, framing the street that lead into the main part of town. Standing out brightly against the deep green summer foliage of the neighborhood was a figure on a bicycle, hunched awkwardly to keep his scraped knees from striking the handlebars with each crank of the pedals._

_Coming by to pick Eddie up first. Like it was something special, like the bike ride to Bill’s was something they could share, just the two of them._

_Without bothering to turn off the radio, Eddie snagged his bag of snacks and maps and medicine and dashed out to meet him,_

(I'm tingling right from my head to my toes

So help me, help me, help me make the feeling go)

 _scuffed sneakers taking the porch steps two at a time, heart fluttering with the usual thrill of a good day about to begin._

Despite all odds and time and distance and circumstances, Eddie never stopped feeling that way every time he saw him. Mike hadn’t noticed Richie yet, having passed by his cab before he stepped out, Richie looking the wrong way down the street and not spotting the two of them either. 

He looked out of place against the dreary backdrop of the city, too bright for it, nervously fishing a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, almost fumbling it. He looked different. Not taller, if he’d managed to get any taller Eddie might have dropped dead right there on the street, but his build had changed. That much was clear under the fabric of his ugly button down, not having bothered to wear a coat despite the bitter cold of the evening. His hair was longer, careless, easy California waves. New glasses, Eddie noticed, as he finally turned. His glasses had been broken in Chicago, that’s right, the new glasses and the broader span of his shoulders and the very way he held himself—

Mike got to Eddie first. “Hey, are you okay? What’s—” 

“Is that Micholas Hanlon in the flesh?” 

Voice was still the same. 

Amazing how the little things could really gut a man like a fish. 

A hand protectively on Eddie’s arm, Mike turned around, lighting up when he finally caught sight of him. “Richie!” He gave Eddie’s arm a squeeze before turning around to dash over and pull Richie into a bear hug. “You made it!” 

“I did, yeah,” Richie said, and then, honest in a way that made Eddie feel as if it sank fingers deep into his guts and stirred them around to shake loose long dormant butterflies, “What a relief, right? I almost lost my lunch like six fucking times on that goddamn plane.”

Eddie’s stomach swooped as Mike pulled back from the hug, grinning, taking Richie by the arm as if to hand him over to Eddie. He watched Richie’s expression falter, something quick and panicky crossing over his face behind his thick glasses when another familiar voice broke over the noisy street. 

_“Guys,_ hey!”

It was Bill, rounding the corner in a full sprint, one hand raised in a wave, clad in a scraggly sherpa-lined denim jacket with the collar turned up against the wind. 

“Where have _you_ been?” Richie asked, snapping briskly back into his easy absentminded persona and opening his arms for Bill as he raced toward the four of them. “You’re gonna ruin my reputation of being most fashionably late, Denbrough!”

Eddie had very calmly been trying to zone the fuck out of the rush of feeling that threatened to swamp him with everyone arriving at once when Bill crashed into him, having darted right past Richie to get to him first. It nearly knocked the breath out of him, making him stumble back a step and catch himself, Bill’s weight almost toppling the both of them. Eddie had to cling to the back of his jacket to keep from overbalancing. The warmth spreading through his chest was suddenly enough to fend off the chill in the air. 

“There he is, groom-to-be,” Bill said into his hair, and Eddie felt a wave of emotion crash into his carefully constructed dam, forcing out a laugh to cover it. “I missed you, man.”

“I— yeah, you too, buddy,” Eddie said quickly, afraid his voice would crack if he said any more. 

Bill detangled himself from Eddie and held him at arm’s length for a second, the way he looked over him so fondly making something twist in his chest. It started to get uncomfortable, too heavy, and right before Eddie said something Bill gave him a brotherly pat on the head and turned to clap his arms around Richie and Mike. 

“I got lost,” he admitted, still catching his breath. “Cab dropped me off on the wrong corner.” 

Richie stuffed his hands cooly into the pockets of his black slacks, Eddie noticing this time he wasn’t even wearing sneakers. Dress shoes and everything. His shirt was still patterned, a slightly too-bright yellow, but it was nice. Sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Something desperate gripped Eddie’s at poor overworked heart. 

“Stanley’s inside,” Mike said, clapping a hand on the back of Bill’s neck. 

“Ben?” Bill asked. 

“On his way, I’m sure.” 

“Why the little rendezvous on the sidewalk, boys?” Richie asked, and Eddie felt his face flush, looking away from him, realizing he’d been looking too long.

His goal tonight was to imply that everything was simply hunky dory. Running out of the restaurant before they’d even taken their seats was a little counterintuitive to that plan. 

“Eddie must have seen you pull up,” Mike said, and Eddie felt a surge of gratitude for him. Leave it to Mike to cover for him, Jesus, Eddie owed him his life. “Right, Eddie?” 

“Yeah,” he said, the sound almost startled out of him. 

Richie, 

_Richie’s here_

now separate from Bill and Mike, rubbed his hands up over his arms, gaze lingering on Eddie before pulling away. “It’s freezing out here, do we wanna take this sausage fest inside?” 

“You could’ve worn a coat,” Eddie observed, feeling sickeningly accomplished when Richie glanced back over to him again. 

The smile was light, familiar, but placid, his voice even when he shrugged. “I could have.” 

“So it begins,” Mike said, clapping Bill between the shoulder blades as he guided him back toward the doors. “Stan might want us to sit down to hold the table, Ben’ll be here soon.” 

Eddie nodded, feeling slightly like he’d just stood up from being wheeled around on a roundabout. Richie and Bill used to do that, he thought detachedly, having not moved. Had Eddie, the lightest one at the time, clamber into the middle of the thing and hold on for dear life as they held onto opposite points on the outside, running full tilt to fling him around until he was screaming laughing or suddenly nauseous. 

Definitely nauseous this time around. 

Eddie blinked, and he and Richie were alone, Bill and Mike having disappeared into the restaurant thinking they were following close behind. 

He jumped, sucking in a little breath, and Richie nearly flinched too. 

Richie attempted a weak little “How’ve you been” at the same time that Eddie observed “I thought you were cold,” both of them faltering on the last word and freezing up. 

“Fine—”

“I am but—”

They stopped again. Stared. Eddie snuck in maybe three more seconds of taking Richie in, still floored by the difference three years made, before noticing Richie was doing the same thing and feeling like he wanted to crawl right out of his skin. He lifted a hand to the back of his neck, rubbing at the tense muscles there to soothe himself, shutting down scattered satellite thoughts. “Um.” 

“Shakespearean.” 

“Can you kindly fuck right off?” Eddie said automatically, making himself blanch. “I mean don’t, I—”

Richie’s eyes had gone wide, body tensed slightly defensively, shoulders trying to draw in tighter than they would go. He didn’t look used to how much he’d filled out, still looking sort of like a young great dane who hadn’t fully grown into the long legs and huge paws. “Sorry,” he said, quieter than he should have been, and Eddie felt very much like he was falling head first into a canyon. 

“Thank you for coming,” Eddie rushed out, burying his hands in his coat to keep them from shaking. Or to at least hide them. “I really didn’t think you were going to.” 

Richie’s mouth pressed into a line briefly, eyes searching him. Voice a little quieter. “I told you I would.” 

“Yeah.” His throat felt sore. 

Richie had always been better at hiding his emotions on his face; Eddie, on the contrary, too much of an open book for his liking, but the rawness in Richie’s expression drove a stake through Eddie’s heart. 

Richie lifted a casual finger to point at Eddie. Eddie realized they were the only ones who hadn’t hugged hello. 

“You’re also not wearing a coat,” Richie observed.

Eddie shifted his coat over his arms, nodding toward the building. “Yeah, we should go inside.” 

Richie held the door for him.

By the time Ben arrived, it was raining, and Bill had begun to stutter again.

“It was just a love tap, but it was enough to stop traffic for a good half hour waiting for the police to swing by,” Ben said, recounting the incredibly minor accident his cab had been involved in on the way over from the hotel. “I really should have just ridden with Stanley, but I couldn’t find my tie and I didn’t want to hold him up.” 

Ben was dressed the nicest, sharp in a grey sports coat, his hair a little damp from the split second it took him to dash inside. 

“Wouldn’t have made a difference,” Stan said, sounding almost as if he was feigning a casual air to his voice. “We made it.” 

Richie had noticed immediately that something was off with him. He could, contrary to popular belief, read a room, and the dining room was reading more and more like a tragedy as wine and beers (and Richie’s Jack and Coke) arrived at the table. Stanley seemed about as cuddly as a cactus, mouth tight and tone clipped when he spoke. He sat between Eddie and Ben, (Ben to Richie’s right, Bill to Richie’s left, Mike on the opposite side of Eddie), back ramrod straight in his chair, one leg obviously bobbing under the table with its little red and white checkerboard tablecloth. 

“I’m glad everyone was okay,” Mike said, having redirected from Stanley already a few times that night and looking increasingly frustrated with single handedly trying to keep the mood light. Bill had gotten shy early on, having struggled a few times to get a sentence out and setting to taking down several cups of water, keeping their waiter busy with refills. 

Most pressing, most painfully tangible was Eddie’s silence. They’d already put in their orders, but he was clinging to his menu, reading it over and over again like a Civil War soldier pouring over a letter from home. Richie had tried to prepare himself for things to be a little awkward, but this was something else. His tone in that gut wrenching voicemail Richie had listened to on repeat for the last month had indicated he was feeling at least a little off, but the dark circles under his eyes and the incessant picking at his nails spoke volumes. Richie felt sick thinking about the brief interaction at the door, the first time they’d been alone together since Richie ran out on him. 

_I really didn’t think you were going to._

He’d managed not to barf on the plane, but he was starting to wish he’d brought the airsickness bag with him to the steakhouse. 

Ben, encouraged by Mike, went on to talk about his trip up to New York, idle and easy things, while Richie took full advantage of Eddie looking anywhere but across the table at him to look him over. The past couple years seemed to have done a number on him, not all of it the apparent exhaustion. His jaw was squaring out, hints of stubble a little darker and more even then they used to be, the lingering baby fat in his face having given way to high cheekbones that contrasted the sweetness of his freckles. They’d faded a little, it was winter, and New York wasn’t known for being so sunshiney. Richie could pick out his dimples without him even smiling, tight lipped and nervous as he was, and watched, half fascinated, as he gnawed on the inside of his cheek, dark, deep set eyes flitting over the menu one more time as he turned it over. He’d always done that, always been more expressive than he meant to, had habits of licking and biting his lips, sucking in his cheeks, scrunching his nose, cinching his eyebrows— face still so _Eddie_ just from the expressions even if the face itself was growing up.

“Richie?” 

He nearly banged his knees on the underside of the table when he startled. “What?” Ripping his eyes away from Eddie just as he started to look up, Richie sat up straight, finding the rest of the table looking at him. His face flushed.

Ben, politely ignoring Richie making an ass of himself, patiently repeated himself. “I just asked how your flight was.” 

Richie waved a hand, preparing the character. Richie if he wasn’t so damn nervous, Richie if the last couple months had been a breeze and he wasn’t here to celebrate Eddie’s getting hitched. The voice came easily. “Oh, it was fine, I was just hoping it would be more like _Airplane!_. Leave it to me to let a good movie get my hopes up, right?”

No one had anything to say to that, really. Richie tried a wide smile, glancing between the rest of them, feeling it quickly slip from his face. 

Beverly should be there. While it was unvoiced, it was one of the loudest things in the room. There had been a time many, many years ago, when they’d gotten on without Beverly, having not met her properly just yet, but she’d become so central to all of them that her absence was tangible. Everyone looked at least a little lost, tossing unsure glances between each other. The waiter swung by and refilled Bill and Ben’s water, and Stanley ordered another glass of Cabernet. Eddie finally offered up his menu and looked stripped, antsy with nothing to hide behind. 

He looked fine, pointedly so, but not good. Fine and, if the selfish part of Richie was being honest, _fine._ Eddie had always looked like the romantic lead in a black and white movie, all sepia tones and class-act handsome charm, stubborn zeal never quite leaving his eyes, dampened as it sometimes was.

As it was now. 

Richie felt chewed up and spit out. He didn’t know if he was built to handle this. His heart was still raw, still, even if it had been two months 

_Two months as of tomorrow, she dumped you on November 12, she walked out on you two whole months ago and you still haven’t heard from her, she wasn’t even home when you dropped off her key and her things, her roommate took them_

since Sandy. He couldn’t bear to think about her here, but there she was, flicking his ear for his attention until it bled. He wasn’t built to handle mourning that relationship and to sit here while Eddie, whom he hadn’t seen in literal years, looked this miserable and this far away on the opposite side of the table, no one bucking up enough to ask him what the fuck was wrong.

Then again, Richie was just as guilty of that as the rest of them. Moreso, even. 

He could have asked what was wrong over the phone ages ago, and he hadn’t. 

Eddie cleared his throat a little too loudly, holding his hands tightly in his lap and looking between the guys. “I just wanna thank you guys for setting this up, it means a lot.” Eddie usually looked small next to Mike, anyone did, but he looked as if he was shrinking in on himself by the minute. “I don’t know how you found this place, Ben, it’s really nice.”

Ben smiled kindly at him. “Stanley helped me pick it out. Seemed like a good place for this.” 

“Yeah, Eddie,” Bill ventured, “we wouldn’t m-m-miss it for th- for the world.” 

“It’s not a big deal,” Eddie said, automatically. “I mean it is, I’m really glad to see you guys, this just— it’s not just about me.” 

Mike reached over to shake his shoulder a little bit, trying his best to be encouraging. It was a little painful. “No, Eddie, it is for you, you’re the one getting married, we’re celebrating.”

“Very adult of us,” Richie said, trying to stop himself there and failing immediately, thoughts falling off his tongue. “Kinda weird, though, isn’t it? Like this time just a couple years ago I couldn’t even legally drink, and now we’re here at the worlds tamest bachelor party.” 

“It’s not a bachelor party,” Eddie insisted, voice a little strained. “It’s just dinner.” 

“Yeah, but it’s sort of like— an engagement thing, right?” 

“Yeah,” Ben said, trying to be helpful here. “We’re still celebrating.” 

“And it’s just— I dunno, Eds, maybe it’s because you’re the first one to get hitched.”

Stanley let out a little breath through his nose. 

Eddie gave Richie a look, his shoulders lifting up to his ears, defensive. Richie really hoped talking about it would make it better, but his stomach was still churning, the actualization of Eddie getting married still not sitting right. 

_Married vows wedding kept-man_

“What are you trying to say, Richie?” 

He tried to play it off, but a little too much truth came out with it. “I dunno, we’re just— pretty damn young, don’t you think? Aren’t engagement parties like late twenties, early thirties behavior?” 

“We’re not too young for this, Richie, that’s not the—” Stanley started, venom dying in his tone at the end. He glanced to Eddie for a split second before turning back to Richie, gaze intense. “Didn’t your parents get married when they were teenagers?” 

Richie waved a hand. “That was in like the 1800s, this is the bright shiny year of our lord 2000—” 

“There’s nothing wrong with getting married at 23, just because _you’re_ looking down a long road of eternal bachelorhood—” 

“Eddie, do we get to meet her while we’re here?” Ben interjected, setting his beer bottle down and cutting Stanley off. “Have you guys met her?” 

“Oh, I’ve met her,” Stanley said, and Richie couldn’t help but notice Eddie grow pale, which burned off his own resentment towards Stanley’s comment quickly. Eddie’s head whipped to the side to look at Stan, eyes round, throat bobbing. 

Nonplussed, tone even, Stanley went on. “We went on a double date once. She’s just _perfectly_ nice.”

“You haven’t told me much about her,” Mike said, squeezing Eddie’s shoulder, trying to help steer the conversation into what he thought were safer waters. “I think you’re allowed to gush a little about her by now, you are engaged to her. You don’t need to be shy about it.” 

Richie was garnering the distinct sense that Eddie’s silence on the topic wasn’t shyness. Something was wrong. He couldn’t bear to make assumptions, but he could tell Eddie was sweating. That, and Stanley wasn’t exactly encouraging the idea that this was as much of a celebration as was a typical funeral. 

A muscle in Eddie’s jaw twitched. Richie ached looking at him, noticing his eyes flit to the door. He wet his lips. “Yeah, she’s great.” He swallowed, looking rabbit-like as the guys looked him over, waiting. Richie wanted to cover his eyes, ashamed to admit he was sitting on the edge of his seat, chest burning with something ugly. 

“She has uh. She has green eyes—” 

Bill laughed, usually a welcome sound, but something that felt startlingly out of place here. He clasped his hands behind his head and rocked back in his chair, easing up a little. “C’mon, Eddie, what’s sh-shh-” he winced, dropping his hands back into his lap. “What’s she like?” 

“Weren’t you seeing a girl a little while ago?” Eddie asked, voice a little too high. “She um— she worked at your publishing house, right?”

A brief silence befell them. Eddie shrank back into his chair a little, having made it perhaps a little too obvious he wasn’t eager to talk about her, searching desperately for a way to recover that just wasn’t there. 

“That’s fucking right,” Richie finally jumped in, just as relieved as Eddie to take up the new change of subject. He caught his little withering look of gratitude out of the corner of his eye and tried to ignore the way it warmed him. “Big Bill’s _publishing house,_ how’s that second novel coming?” 

“It’s coming,” Bill said, and Richie could tell something was off there, too: he sounded discouraged. “You know hah-how that is.”

“Writing a novel?” Mike asked, bemused. 

“Yeah.” 

“You’re actually the resident expert on that, Mr. Published Author. How is it?” 

“Tedious,” Bill admitted to Mike, who smiled sympathetically. “But I don’t wanna g-get int-t-to it too much, c’mon.”

Another break. Another silence filled wit fidgeting napkins on laps, adjusting utensils, sips of water. Things that felt out of place among a group of such supposedly close friends. 

Richie took a full gulp of his drink, wetting his lips as he risked a glance across the table. Familiarity went a long way. Old shit jokes were worth a shot. “How’s _my_ girl, Eddie?”

Eddie blanched again. “Your—”

Bill barked a laugh, which broke the heavy smog of tension descending over the table by minute. “Oh, fuck _off_ with that, R-R-R-”

 _“R-R-R-R—”_ Richie mocked, reaching over to push at his shoulder. “Spit it out.” 

“Knock it _off.”_

It worked only for a moment, the two off them taking a break from the weight of this train wreck dinner to goof off doing everyone some good.

“Your mother,” Stanley offered Eddie, face unreadable, voice monotone. “He’s talking about your mother, Eddie, this isn’t news, he’s still not funny.” 

“Excuse you, Mr. Uris, I now get paid to be funny.” 

_Eternal bachelorhood._ He was going to have to chew him out for that later.

“Clearly not paid much,” Mike observed good-naturedly, cocking an eyebrow at him. “Don’t you still work at Blockbuster?” 

Ben laughed, and Richie did his best to look offended. It only stung, realistically, a little bit. “Excuse you, Michael, clearly you’re not educated in Los Angeles culture.” 

“Oh, you have _culture_ now? That is news.” Mike grinned. What a welcome sight. 

“Yes, and we Los Angeleans don’t count day jobs. We don’t talk about day jobs, therefore I don’t work at Blockbuster, I’m an _up and coming comedian who has to pay rent,_ thank you very much.” He put on a Voice for it, something nasally and full of too much self pride, hoping to make it clear how little he actually thought of himself as such.

Ben snickered into his glass of water, and Richie took advantage of the little break in tension to sneak a glance at Eddie. He was sort of looking off, somewhere over Richie’s shoulder, eyes unfocused, hand tight over the top of his wine glass, jaw tight. Richie’s stomach sank. 

“Eddie?”

He snapped to attention, eyebrows shooting up. 

He could have asked anything, could have actually checked in on him, could have offered for them to get the check and go somewhere they actually wanted to be outside of this weirdly formal steakhouse with the overpriced fries and go relax and find a place they were all okay talking about what was really eating at them, which seemed like something different for everyone, but instead, opting for familiarity and an easy way to gauge how Eddie was doing, he asked, “How _is_ your dear mother?” 

Richie regretted it immediately, even if it was a joke, even if to just get a rise out of him. The thickness to the air returned, all of them keying into Eddie’s apparent discomfort, face looking pinched as he took a shallow sip of his wine, nodding a little. 

“She’s good, yeah, she’s doing fine. Still— still Sonia.” The breathiest little laugh escaped him, something so forced it looked almost like it hurt. 

Richie slid a glance to Bill, who blinked a few times.

So this was going swimmingly.

Their poor waiter served their food to a quiet and uneasy table a few minutes later. Richie caught Bill digging absentmindedly in the pocket of his coat, which he hadn’t yet bothered to take off, out of the corner of his eye. He furrowed his brow, finding something by feel, and sliding it out. Richie barely noticed a flash of something plastic before Bill sat up straighter, shoving the thing back inside deep, and returning to his plate.

Ben had caught on to Mike’s attempts at saving the conversation and a few times tried to prompt Eddie into talking about absolutely anything that would iron out the wrinkle in his brow, but none of it took. Ben and Mike began to share worried glances across the table, Stanley seemed absorbed in his own turbulent thoughts, still prickly whenever he was called upon to speak, and Bill looked just plain uncomfortable, shifting restlessly in his seat. Richie was ready to fake his own death to get this night over with. He’d been to one acting class by then, he figured he might be able to make a heart attack or stroke look convincing if it really came down to it. 

Eddie, throughout the dinner, was seemingly conscious in not looking actively miserable. Then again, Eddie was terrible at hiding how he was really feeling. Slivers of it kept slipping through the increasingly forced smiles. Part of Richie was worried he was making it up, reading too far into it. Eddie could just be missing Beverly, the night feeling incomplete without her. He could be constipated or something. But Richie couldn’t help but wonder what else was going on here. 

The phrase _wishful thinking_ came to mind, but no, that couldn’t be it, Richie didn’t _wish_ misery on Eddie, wouldn’t ever, but would this be easier if Eddie truly _wasn’t_ excited about this whole thing? If the wedding, maybe, was something sinisterly Sonia, something not of Eddie’s own volition? If Eddie would tug Richie close by the sleeve once they all got up to leave, take him to some quiet and private corner of the lobby, go up on his toes with his less than perfect balance, hands against Richie’s chest, and whisper to him, rushed and excitable, _Get me out of here, Richie, take me home. I don’t want this, I don’t care about any of this, I want—_

But that was a little selfish, wasn’t it? That, right there, was wishful thinking. 

Would he be allowed to feel more selfish if Eddie actually looked excited about this whole thing?

Something was going on, and Richie wished more than anything he could just talk to him about it. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized he had no right to even wish that. How many times over the past year had Eddie called him with that note in his voice, that little crack in his composure, that quiet, miniscule cry for help he knew only Richie could pick out? How many times had Richie called him back and gone with it when Eddie glazed it over, instead of pressing him about it like maybe he needed? How many times had he left a half-assed voicemail and not called a second time to try and catch him on the line? How many times had he simply not gotten back to him, dismissing a short and casual message on his machine as simply Eddie calling out of boredom rather than what could have been an attempt to prod Richie into responding, to make sure he wasn’t forgetting him? 

His heart dropped out of his ass when the thought finally hit him. 

What if he had something to do with Eddie’s apparent misery? 

His heart felt raw, gnawed on by locusts. Tired of feeling entirely too much. His thoughts had been consumed by Sandy before this whole debacle, consumed by feeling unloved and abandoned and wondering what the hell he did wrong, wondering if love was really worth its salt if he could love someone as much as he loved her only to have her drop him in the end, but this was an entirely new form of self torture. Since the voicemail, the Eddie Problems were peppered in, mixing into the reeking stew of his thoughts. Eddie didn’t want him either, and shouldn’t, and that fucking stung, but that was his fault, but Eddie was miserable anyway; Eddie was miserable, apparently, with or without him, and that meant Richie couldn’t do anything to help him, but had somehow managed to make it worse. Richie felt his pulse picking up, his stomach turning when he looked down at his burger and steak fries, hardly having eaten anything. Everyone was picking birdlike at their food, only eating enough to keep hands and mouths so no one had to speak, chewing too long on their sirloin or sipping lightly at their drinks. 

The scrape of Richie’s chair was too loud, forcing everyone’s eyes up from their plates. 

“I’m gonna go rock a piss,” Richie announced, gracefully. He tossed his napkin from his lap onto the table, the black cloth stark on the white, and rose from his chair. Bill’s scraped back a second later. 

“Same here.” 

“You girls have fun,” Stanley muttered, an elbow uncharacteristically on the table, supporting his head. He straightened up a moment later, mouth going tight, eyes wide, and Richie saw Ben’s hand retreating from his side where he’d just flicked him, a forcefully bright smile on his face. 

“We’ll make sure you don’t miss too much.” 

“I’m not worried,” Bill said, actually taking Richie’s arm and steering him for the bathroom. 

The door was heavy, the bathroom empty, clean and white, a bowl of mints under each mirror. 

“Mother _fuck,”_ Richie spat, immediately setting to pacing. “This is going fucking— _splendidly,_ isn’t it?” 

“Bev should be here.” 

“Oh,” Richie started, half frantic. “Is that it? Billy? Is that the main problem here?” 

“No, jackass.” Bill crossed his arms. “It’s a whole cl-clusterfuck, I just feel somehow it would be less of a cl-l-lusterfuck if Bev were here.” 

“That much is obvious.” He raked his fingers through his hair, pacing in front of the stalls. “Why the fuck is Stanley acting like he’s more interested in biting everyone’s heads off than his own fucking steak? What the fuck was that fucking swing he took at me?” 

“I don’t know what his d-deal is tonight, but Eddie looks like he’s going to rocket th-through the ceiling if he doesn’t ea-ease up,” Bill observed, shaking his head. “He’s way too stressed ab-bout this.” 

“He looks so fucking— _fuck.”_ Richie leaned back against the sink, shoving his glasses up into his hair and pressing his face into his palms. “I don’t think I can even fucking stand to look at him any more tonight, he looks like he’s on fucking death row. I wanna fucking scream, do you think they’ll kick us out if I just start screaming?”

“In my professional opinion, I d-don’t think it’ll go well.” 

Dropping his glasses back onto his face, Richie got up to pace again. “There’s no saving this. I really don’t think we can save this, _fuck,_ he was probably all excited about seeing you guys and it’s all going down the drain—” 

“We can’t just leave,” Bill said, and Richie paused. 

He pointed at him. “I wasn’t suggesting that.”

Bill nodded, sticking his hands in his pockets. He worried his lip between his teeth. Richie sat back against the sink again, restless, tipping his head back and staring at the bulbs above the mirrors upside down until his eyes stung. He shut them, watching red and white bursts dance behind his eyelids. “Should we just get rip roaring drunk and hope this ends soon? I have a feeling this is going to drag for a while, Ben and Mike are too interested in trying to revive this and it’s long fucking dead.” 

Bill was silent for a moment too long. When Richie opened his eyes to look at him, he was blind for a second, the light making it hard to adjust to proper vision. Bill came steadily into focus, giving Richie an odd look. 

“What? What is it?” 

“Richie, you’re one of my b-best friends,” he started, in that slow way of his. “I think you and Eddie are my old-d— oldest friends, okay?” 

“What, you’re gonna get sappy on me now?”

“Listen, Rich, I’m just m-making sure of something here.” 

“Making sure of what? I love you, dude, you know that, what are you—” 

Richie’s voice died in his throat when Bill extracted the little plastic thing from his pocket, the something he’d noticed and quickly hidden at dinner. Richie’s mouth fell open, instantly dry, and Bill quickly stuck the baggie back into his pocket. “Hear me out—” 

“Why the _fuck—”_

“Richie—” 

_“Bill!”_ He stood up off the sink, holding his hands up in disbelief and checking the door compulsively. “Why the _fuck_ did you bring—”

“I d-didn’t bring it on _purpose—”_

“You just keep fucking cocaine in your jacket? Just in case? That’s what you’re doing now, Bill, you just walk around with fucking coke on you—”

“Richie, I can’t fucking explain h-how the h-hell I forgot this was in here, I don’t even remem-member when the fuck I b-bought this.” 

Richie threw his hands up and set to pacing again, casting frantic looks to the door. “That’s fucked, Bill, that’s actually fucked, okay, I’m not here to judge your writing methods or coping methods or whatever this is, but I fucking remember it when I buy coke, okay, that’s a little fucked up—” 

“Hey, the p- _point_ is that I have it on me, okay. Fuck how it got there.” 

Richie stopped in his tracks again. They were playing 80’s music softly over the speakers in the bathroom, which felt distinctly out of place. The music out in the dining room was more ambient. He stared at Bill, searching for any obvious signs of apparent insanity, but his expression was cool and collected. The intro of the next song on the speakers was familiar, Richie recognized it immediately. Blondie. His favorite Blondie song, actually—

“Bill,” he said, all kinds of careful. He took a breath. “It’s a bad idea.” 

“It’s the worst fucking idea,” Bill said, almost laughing. “Jesus Ch-Christ.” 

“But—” 

“Yeah.” 

Richie rolled his eyes, tipping his head back and groaning. He scrubbed a hand across his forehead. “We fucking need therapy.” 

“We need way m-more than fucking therapy, b-b-buddy.” 

_“Fuck.”_ He was sweating. “How much fucking worse could it get?” 

“My thoughts exactly.” 

“Fuck,” Richie sighed, turning quickly into a disbelieving laugh as he raked his fingers through his sweaty hair. “Fuck, it’ll make the night go by a little fucking faster, won’t it? Make shit a little less miserable?” 

“You were the one wh-who told me it’s b-better when you’re not alone.” 

“We’re just talking ourselves into this.” 

“Oh, we’re both being really hor-hor-rifically enabling right n-now, yeah. Big time.” 

“We have to play it cool.” Richie barked a laugh, not quite feeling it in his chest. From the throat. “Social grace in a bag, right?” 

“Fuck it.” Bill pulled out the baggie again, glancing over his shoulder at the door. 

Richie only felt a little sick. This was sleazy of them, undeniably. It was a little selfish. It was cliche as shit, too, thinking about it. Snorting coke off of a steakhouse bathroom sink dressed as nicely as they cared to be for this godforsaken Friday night. But, shit. It really would breeze by. They’d at least get around 20 minutes of enjoyment out of this night, then it’d be over, back to misery business as usual. He took a deep breath which only shook a little bit, locking eyes with Bill. If they went down, at least they’d be going down together. 

“Fuck it.” Richie dug in his pocket for his wallet.

It would have been so much better if they were playing the same thing in the bathroom as in the dining room. The transition from hopping around with Bill for the first couple minutes of the high to Blondie to the weird shift of bursting through the bathroom door back into the restaurant was awkward to say the least, and Richie had to bite his lip hard to keep from cracking up. He heard Bill audibly snort next to him and he couldn’t help it, barking one sharp little hyena laugh into the swanky ambiance of the dining room. He could feel eyes turn to them and he didn’t mind in the least, giving a slightly startled looking waitress a little wink as he sank his hands back into the pockets of his slacks. 

“Billy my boy, we’ve had worse ideas.” 

“You can say that again.” 

“Billy my boy—” 

Bill tipped his head back and laughed, and took Richie by the arm, marching him back toward the table. “Remember? Playing it cool?” 

“Oh, I’m the coolest, don’t you know me?” 

“Too well,” Bill said, nudging him slightly off balance. 

Richie hadn’t quite stopped dancing, the song stuck in his head. “Take advantage of that while you can, pal, do you want an autograph now? Hang onto it, it’s gonna be worth fucking _money_ someday.” 

“You and me both, Tozier, got anything you want me to sign?” 

“You can kiss this sweet ass,” Richie said, turning around to walk backwards toward their table, still to the beat of the song in his head. He blew a kiss to Bill, who cracked up, bracing an arm against the wall next to the bathroom door. Richie used to watch this music video all the time, bopping as he went with that stiff little shoulder bob as he grooved backwards.

“Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!” Bill called, a smidge too loud. 

They were catching glances and glares from some of the tables near the bathroom, people who, apparently, did not understand how to have a good time. Richie did a little turn, wishing dearly he had a scarf like Blondie in the video. This was a free goddamn show, god damn it. He could use a prop. 

A woman squawked when he bumped into the back of her chair, but Richie just grinned at her, figuring a little charm would win her over. 

How quickly a night could look up. As much as Richie wanted to get back to the table, knowing now he and Bill could easily score a couple laughs and ease up their poor sticks-up-asses friends, the dining room was a dance floor now, even if he was really just grooving. Relishing in the attention, glad to perform for the lucky patrons of this particular steakhouse. He’d love to get outside, then this would really feel like the music video, Twin Towers and all. Maybe they could sneak a bump once this was over and hit the town, show the boys a real good time. 

He caught a split second glimpse of Eddie as he did another spin on his way, having lost track of Bill momentarily in the sea of tables. He was fine. Eddie, however, was the one who needed cheering up. His thoughts, always fast and clear and quick like this, shifted to him, to EddieEddieEddie, the consternation on his face only deepening as Richie approached. God, he was cute when he was mad. He looked a little baffled if anything, maybe a little secondhand embarrassed, but Richie didn’t mind. He was Blondie, for fucks sake. Debbie fucking Harry, my guy. 

He heard Bill call his name as he made his final approach, turning quickly to look at him and graciously flip him off when he stumbled. 

He trusted his coordination, surely, knew he wasn’t going to fall, but maybe the two Jack and Cokes were affecting him just a tad underneath. So all he had to do was catch himself.

Sincere apologies to the waiter he suddenly caught himself on. 

The real miracle was Richie catching the tray for him, even if he caught it all down the back of his shirt. Only one or two casualties there: all in all, could have been worse. Some of the plates were upright and intact when Richie threw a hand out to support the tray, at least 80 percent victorious. Someone’s dinner, some kind of pasta, from the feeling of it, was a little hot, stung his skin through his shirt, but Richie laughed it off pretty easily, time slowing in the split seconds between colliding and catching himself and turning around and suddenly being free of support again. The waiter shoved him back a few steps, which was rude, and his ankle caught on a chair leg, which wasn’t his fault, and his hip checked painfully into the back of a chair. He heard his name several times and oh, would you look at that, he’d successfully made it to his table with only a few stains to show for it, and he was falling forward but, again, he trusted himself, he trusted the process and his coordination and this table to support his weight, but then in sudden hindsight, realized the shouldn't have trusted the table and it put him off balance and fuck fuck fuck he was fumbling, hands skittering for support knees banging another chair and someone yelped and Richie very quickly tried to reassure everyone that everything was fine and perfectly under perfect control perfectly under his control and his glasses slipped off so he scrabbled for those and pushed something off the table but there they were, hello, dear spectacles, and Richie threw them back on his face, bent in half over the table with one foot off the floor, toe comically pointed like an actress kissing a lover in an old black and white film, and when his vision returned he was staring at Eddie’s dress shirt, which was once a conservative pale blue, now stained purple all down the front with Stan’s Cabernet. 

Several things then happened at once, but Richie’s brain had frozen and locked in, eyes traitorously having slid upward to Eddie’s face, bright red, mortified, those dark eyes Richie adored so much locked in sheer disbelief at the clown of a man sprawled on the table in front of him, covered in spaghetti and cold with late-onset remorse. 

Bill arrived out of the ether and yanked Richie dizzily up to his feet, Stan stood up and finally cracked, shouting something Richie didn’t catch, Mike scrabbled for a napkin and reached for Eddie, Ben tried to yank Stanley back down into his seat, glancing worriedly over at the approaching manager, and the six of them, inevitably, were asked none too kindly to leave. 

It’s pouring when they’re ushered outside, Mike and Bill allowed to remain inside for only a moment to make sure the bill and due apologies were well taken care of.

Richie is coming down rapidly, the bursting confidence bleeding out of him in what felt like seconds, falling over himself to chase after Eddie as Ben walks him outside and tries to find a dry spot to stand in the freezing downpour. 

He calls after him weakly, skin buzzing, brain stuffed with cotton and lacking all previous sense of clarity. 

Stan doesn’t even let him get close, wedging himself between Richie and Eddie and squaring to his full height, bristling with fury. “What the _fuck_ was that, Richie?” his voice cracks, nearly nose to nose with him, curls already flat to his head in the rain. He grabs him by the biceps when Richie tries to dodge him, holding him firmly in place. 

Stan didn’t shove, Richie knew this, but he would shove back if he needed to. 

“I— let me apologize, okay, Stan, get the fuck out of my way—”

 _“No,_ no you don’t get to, is this some kind of stunt?”

 _“Stunt?”_ Richie tries to sidestep him again, gritting his teeth when Stanley gets right in his way again, their chests colliding briefly. Eddie is fending off Ben behind him, holding his hands up defensively, face still red, hair out of place—

“Richie,” Stanley snaps, and Richie finally blows past him, Eddie ducking out from behind Ben to meet him halfway. 

Something hits him like a bowling ball to the chest, cracking his ribs and flattening his ribs, the sight of Eddie marching toward him with the red stain down the front of his shirt, something he’d seen before, 

Eddie at twelve with a bloody nose staining his polo, hurt but determined, only scared of the retribution from his mother when he got home and never the bullies, looking up at Richie with some sort of budding fondness; 

Eddie in his hotel room with Richie’s blood on him, not giving a shit about the mess, the vastness and brightness in his eyes seconds before he’d kissed him, yanking the rug out from under Richie’s clumsy feet and turning everything wonderfully upside down before Richie had run away full tilt and squandered it, the point of no return;

Eddie covered in wine and rain and humiliation, burning and storming toward him, face screwed up and posture all angled forward in rage, stopping short inches from Richie who flinches back, mouth half open wanting desperately to squeeze in a sorry while his voice was still working. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” It comes finally, Eddie boiling over like a pot of hot water long forgotten on the burner, voice high and hectic. 

Stanley reaches for Eddie’s arm to keep him from going too far, but Eddie yanks it out of his grasp, stepping forward and making Richie flinch back again, speechless for once. 

_“No,_ I ask for _one_ fucking night of your time and you go and fucking—”

Bill bursts out of the restaurant, followed closely by Mike, both of them racing toward the disaster unfolding on the sidewalk. Bill tries to run toward Richie, shaking his head, but Mike holds him back, leaving Richie to fend for himself. 

“Eddie—”

“No, shut the fuck up, I gave you _plenty_ of fucking opportunities to—” he shrugs Stan off again, snatching his arm away. “You don’t even bother to pick up the phone fucking _once,_ Richie!”

He takes it for the first few lines, deserving it, heavy with guilt, drowning in it, but something else clicks in his brain as Eddie’s voice continues to rise. Festering anger wells up in Richie’s chest, three years of hurting over it finally reaching a tipping point, and Richie finally screams back, Eddie not even flinching. 

“You could have talked to your fucking _girlfriend,_ smartass, instead you were the one crying to me drunk on the fucking phone from a thousand miles away like you hadn’t _immediately_ gotten with her after—” 

_“You_ were the one who left! _You_ fucking ran away!” There’s tears brimming now, Eddie’s eyes shimmering, hair plastered to his forehead. He looks tiny and furious, shaking mad and trembling in the freezing cold. He jabs a finger hard into Richie’s sternum. “Then you fucked off to _California_ like it didn’t even fucking matter—”

The hurt is so raw in his voice, it stabs clean through Richie’s ribs like a hot knife through butter, claws tearing him up on the inside, but he’s not done, ready with one final blow.

“Who fucking got us into this fucking wreck, Eddie?” he screams, voice dry and cracking. It hurts his throat, his chest, it hurts his whole body like fever aches. _“You’re_ the one who ki—” 

Then Ben is wrestling him backward as Stan finally gets a grip on Eddie. They both fight it but they’re both outmatched, Ben somehow managing to keep a tight grip on Richie despite them both slick and soaked through from the rain. Richie’s still speeding, burning off quickly but running on the fumes of the cocaine, mouth suddenly back in motion as he barks at Ben to let him go, Mike fighting to do damage control with Bill, Stanley trying to calm down Eddie despite his own fury. People are watching, someone’s most likely going to call the cops and they were really going to be in trouble then, Bill still had drugs on him in his fucking jacket pocket.

“Richie, look at me,” Ben insists, wrenching him upright to face him, mouth half open in disbelief. Richie can hear the commotion behind him and can’t quite focus on Ben’s voice, vastly more concerned with Eddie behind him, but Ben pushes his face into Richie’s space and locks eyes with him, eyebrows shooting up. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Let me go, Ben, I swear to fucking god—” 

“What’s— Richie, your eyes—” 

Richie finally ducks out of his grasp as Ben, in disbelief, asks “Are you high?” and Mike kindly reminds them that they are going to have a date with the NYPD soon if they don’t calm down and get out of there. 

Fury starting to crash and making way for the real devastation, for the realization that there’s tears on Eddie’s cheeks and he’s the one who put them there, Richie calls after Eddie, Bill ducking in to stop Ben from chasing him, and Richie stumbles and against all odds _laughs,_ the sound startled out of him as the high finally starts to kick down into low gear and reality starts rushing back in and everything shatters all at once. 

Stanley whips around in a second, Eddie suddenly the one scrabbling to hold him back as he lunges for Richie. He grabs him by the front of his shirt and hauls him upright, eyes wild, something manic surfacing in him Richie’s never seen before. There's a split second for him to be frightened by it before Stan let’s loose, screaming in his face for all he’s worth, 

“You think this is fucking _funny,_ Richie?” He shakes him once and Richie very nearly shoves him back, bracing his hands on his forearms, but Stan delivers the kill shot and Richie’s helpless. 

_“Not everything’s fucking about you, you self-absorbed piece of shit!”_

Mike has them moving a second later, yanking Richie by the hand hard enough to jolt his shoulder in it’s socket to run them off and clear the scene, and Richie has a split second to see Ben gather up Eddie and Stanley and usher them off in the opposite direction, a flash of lightning tearing through the sky and a clap of thunder ringing in Richie’s ears. 

The rain on tin roof of the bus stop awning was near deafening. Mike didn’t usually pace, not in Richie’s experience with him. It made him even more edgy, unable to keep still on the bench. The urge to cry is distinctly present, welling in his chest, but he won’t allow himself to, won’t give into the self pity involved to induce tears. 

Ben was across the street with Stanley and Eddie. Mike was left in charge of Bill and Richie, seated under the awning of their own bus stop, side by side. A very polite, presumingly homeless man was to Richie’s left, a few considerate inches away. There was something a little funny about it, looking from the outside in: the two trios of them separated in bus stops facing each other on opposite sides of the street like bickering kids in time out. 

But no one involved was laughing.

“You two,” Mike started, still pacing, paying their unfortunate witness no mind. He stopped, turned toward them, brow drawn. He looked to Bill, who withered slightly, shoulders deflating where they pressed against Richie’s. “I thought we talked about this,” he said, voice soft, and Richie suddenly felt as if he was intruding on something. 

It wasn’t like he could concentrate on Mike anyway. His attention was elsewhere, watching like a hawk across the street between the passing cars and blurred tail lights, trying to decipher for the love of god what was going down between the rest of them. Stanley and Eddie were on their feet at one point, hashing something out, and Ben was trying desperately to mediate.

“You guys realize how badly you fucked up, right?” Mike asked, and Richie finally tore his gaze away to look up at him. 

“Yeah, Mike, I know,” Richie said. “That was a _shit_ show—” 

“Of _course_ it was a shit show!” Mike said, spreading his arms. “It was a _mess,_ Richie,” Richie shrank a little at the way he said his name, “but in what world did you two think going to the bathroom to snort coke was going to make that better? Sometimes you grin and bear it and get through the shit show, okay? That wasn’t fair, especially not to Eddie.”

Eddie was sitting now, Stan bent slightly at the waist with his hands on his hips, Ben with a hand on Stan’s shoulder to make sure he kept his distance. Richie’s stomach seized up as he watched Eddie deflate, collapse in on himself, growing smaller and smaller until he dropped his face into his hands. Stanley suddenly stopped, standing up straight, and Ben sat down next to Eddie on the bench, throwing an arm protectively around him. Richie tore his eyes away when Eddie’s shoulders started to shake, Stanley breaking down and sitting on the opposite side of him. 

“Richie.” 

“Yes, present,” he said, automatically. 

Mike blinked at him. “I asked if you were okay.” 

His mouth twitched. Richie looked down at his shoes, soaked through, toes absolutely freezing. One shoe had come untied, the nice lace flattened and stomped on. He drew in a breath. Swallowed. “No, Mikey, not really.” 

Some kind of brutal honesty must have bled through in his voice, because when he dared look back up, even their new homeless friend was looking at him with some kind of sympathy. 

_I love him,_ Richie thought a little pathetically. _I love him and I have no clue what to do about any of this, and it hurts, and I still miss Sandy, and I don’t know how I can miss her and love him at the same time, and Eddie’s hurting and I can’t fix it._

“Ain’t that a bitch,” he said, when no one said anything else, because he couldn’t go around telling them all that. He sniffed, choosing to believe it was from the cold, his nose red and running. It was miserable, soaked to the bone with the chill in the air, all of Richie’s extremities numb while his insides were anything but, all the little cuts and slices from each careful little scalpel that scraped over him recently open and weeping.

“Hey,” came Mike’s voice, warm and deep and patient in a way Richie didn’t deserve at the moment. It made that almost crying feeling worse, made Richie really work for it to swallow it down. “You really fucked up tonight, okay?” 

He knew. 

“Heartbreak isn’t an excuse.” 

He knew. 

“You’re— this is gonna take a lot of making up. This— this is a mess.”

Richie’s voice came out quiet, tired. “I know.”

“You really don’t lean on us enough, Richie.”

He had to try twice to swallow, throat thick, mouth dry. He couldn’t meet Mike’s eyes, afraid tears would finally spill over if he did, but he nodded. Mike rested a hand on his shoulder, Richie able to feel the look that passed between him and Bill, feeling oddly empty finally, like he’d felt enough for the night and had reached his quota on emotion for the day. Maybe for the fucking year, that would be nice. 

He didn’t know how long they sat like that, Richie shivering and staring at his shoes, Mike and Bill both with just a comforting touch on him, just presence. Part of Richie noticed when Bill’s gaze fell elsewhere, and Richie instinctively looked up to follow it. 

Eddie was padding up to their shelter, elbows drawn tight to his side, expression as blank as he could manage. He looked wet and wrung out, posture crumpled. Richie’s chest seized with panic, unprepared for whatever Eddie had to say to him then, unsure of how to even begin repairing this. 

If Eddie even wanted to. 

He stopped short, still caught in the drizzle the storm had slowed to, and sniffed once. Mike took a step back. Richie’s teeth clicked together, but he steeled himself, taking a deep breath before slowly meeting Eddie’s gaze. 

“My car’s back at the restaurant,” was all he said for a moment. His eyes flickered between Bill and Mike and he wet his lips anxiously, clearing his throat before looking again at Richie, imploringly. He could barely see the red rimming his eyes, the wet weight of his dark bottom lashes. “I need to talk to you,” he said, quietly, as if he dropped his voice low enough maybe only Richie would be able to hear him. 

It took him a second to get it, but a jolt ran through his stomach as Richie sat up. “Oh— right.” He got to his feet hurriedly, feeling much like a baby deer on his unsteady legs, and Eddie only nodded briefly to Mike as he started back off in the direction they came. 

Richie followed. 

Stanley and Ben were watching from the other side of the street as the two of them peeled off from the group, Richie’s stomach turning over and over, flipped like diner flapjacks. He risked one glance back over his shoulder and found Bill quietly giving him a little thumbs up, which only made his stomach twist more violently. 

The drive was silent. Eddie didn’t even bother to turn on the radio. Richie had half a mind to think this was intentional and done specifically to torture him, which Richie would have deserved, but he noticed halfway through the ride that Eddie hadn’t even turned on his lights and it was a result of sheer distraction. The car heater was struggling but did its best to dry them off, leaving them only a fraction warmer safe from the clawing January wind.

Being in the same space with him gave the situation a final gravity Richie was struggling to bear. He felt ghost-like, all defense systems in his brain trying to lock him out of it, but there he was. 

Soaked to the bone, sweating like a sinner in church, inches from Eddie Kaspbrak. 

Wasn’t irony a bold little bitch. 

Richie knew what he was expecting when Eddie unlocked the door to his apartment. The narrow, coldly lit hallway of the 6th floor of the building indicated the shoebox-like apartments behind the identical doors that marched down it from the rickety elevator at the far end. Claustrophobic, overpriced, New York studios with a brilliant view of the plain brick of the building next door. 

But when Eddie opened the door, Richie felt like he walked into a little movie set. Maybe a scale model of one, because it was tiny, no doubt, but regardless. This was Eddie’s place. It was, after all, the first place he was living entirely on his own, the first place where he had full reign. And the apartment bore it so well. It looked lived in, remarkably, stuffed to the brim with Eddie’s things. It looked slightly haphazard at first, but Richie quickly caught on to the patterns, to the number of hooks and shelves put up on the walls, the way the corners of the room and window sills were utilized, the little hidden baskets and drawers and things under the coffee table and beside the couch and on top of the kitchenette cabinets. A couch, a dresser, a radio, a tiny boxy TV on a TV tray, just like Richie’s but with less VHS tapes stuffed onto every flat surface nearby, a fridge, a stove, a dish rack. A little plant that looked a little overwatered and sun baked on the windowsill behind the couch. White pinpricks of rain-turned-snow were drifting against the grey backdrop of what looked like a fairly open view, a stark black line of the rail of a fire escape drawn across one corner of the corner window. And god, was it warm. Richie shivered the moment they crossed the threshold, the cozy heat of the place striking him immediately. 

Drinking the place in was a good distraction, a great excuse for Richie to clench and unclench his hands in his pockets and look anywhere but Eddie, who immediately shrugged out of his sopping wet coat and hung it neatly on a peg next to the door in a short line of other jackets, a hat a scarf. He made a beeline for the kitchen, swiping a little coffee pot from the counter to fill it with water. 

“Wow,” Richie ventured in the gaping silence. 

“I know, you don’t have to say it.” Eddie reached for a bag of coffee grounds from a cabinet, sky blue paint chipping off the wood. His demeanor had changed. Less posing, attempts to render an image of I’m alright dissolving. It didn’t feel good by any measure, seeing him like that, but it was decisively better than the bullshitting. He sniffed, and when he turned, Richie noticed how red his nose was from the cold, heart jumbling about in his chest as Eddie blew past him and pulled open a drawer in the dresser. “I have to change my shirt.” 

He should change everything, given the state they were in, but it seemed the red wine stain was bothering him the most. 

Guilt bitter on the back of his tongue, Richie politely turned more toward the door, which had another little hook stuck just above the knob, holding Eddie’s keys. So he didn’t forget on his way out. He was soaked himself, but he’d dry. The wet clothes gave him an easy excuse for the trembling anyway. 

Richie swallowed, speaking to the door. “I don’t have to say what?” 

“It’s small.” 

“It’s— cozy.” _It’s yours,_ he wanted to say. _It’s compact and tidy without being perfect and it feels right, it’s you._

“Sure.”

The shortness in his tone had Richie picking at his nail beds, jittery, antsy. Nothing he didn’t deserve. He’d come down properly, but his heart rate hadn’t slowed this entire time, making him feel equally horribly fatigued and energized at the same time. He kept searching for little things to occupy his racing mind, looking for little Eddieisms, spotting a collection of sticky notes on one of the cabinets, wanting desperately to read through them but feeling like he was invading. He felt like he was invading anyway, trespassing in the space that was so solely Eddie’s. Walking back into his life and stepping all over it. He was firmly in the doghouse, should be sleeping outside in the snow, but Eddie had invited him back inside the house regardless. A kindness he pointedly didn’t deserve. It made him want to squirm. 

Eddie came back into view when he stepped back into the kitchenette. The backsplash was yellow. He was still in his dress pants but had removed his wet socks and shiny black shoes, shoes he must wear to work at his office job, now in a soft dark green sweatshirt. The collar had a shallow V almost like a jersey, two white bands circling the sleeves just above the elbows. Something squeezed at Richie’s heart. Eddie’s cowlick had been rucked up by the static of pulling it over his head, the little swirl of hair standing up like it did when he was a kid, wet hair freed from his hair gel.

His sigh was weighty when he pulled a mug from a cabinet, the weird Jack Russel one Richie remembered too vividly from a number of Novembers ago, filled then with white wine. Richie shoved away the memory as Eddie set it on the counter and pulled the coffee pot from the drip.

“You want some?” 

“N—” 

“Caffeine's an upper too, right?”

Richie’s throat went dry. He froze up when Eddie turned around, mug warming his hands, resting back against the counter. His posture was a poor attempt at feigning casual, spine stiff, one ankle crossing over the other, knees locked and tense. 

Richie felt pressingly small, keeping his elbows close to his sides as if the slight pressure on his ribs could calm him down. 

Richie looked like he desperately needed a fucking hug. Eddie hated it. He didn’t fucking deserve a godamn hug, not after that stunt, not after this whole debacle, 

_Not after fucking off to California and falling in love and not bothering to return your calls then trying to call you out on your shit?_

Maybe that too. Eddie was doing pretty well recently with not being honest with himself, but that little hurt slipped past. That big hurt, actually. It hurt big. It hurt big looking at him here. Not only in person, but shivering still from the miserable damp cold, maybe shaking from more than that too, the smile that belonged on his face painfully absent, eyes downcast as if Eddie’s doormat were the most interesting thing in the room. _Here,_ he thought with a sting, _here, with me, alone, with me,_ properly for the first time since Eddie’s hotel room in Chicago. An unwelcome jolt shocked through Eddie’s brain and he lifted his mug to his lips, forcing himself not to wince at the too hot too strong sip of coffee, trying to let it ground him. 

Too much to say. Too much ground to cover. Too many ways this conversation could have gone, had tonight not gone so badly. Had three years ago gone differently. Eddie felt sick with it, brimming with the pent up everything, knowing what he wanted to address and, lo and fucking behold, surprising himself with something else. 

_“Fuck,_ do you know how fucking much I worry about you?” He said it all in one breath, rushed and frantic and sounding too much like he did when he was a kid for his own liking. 

Richie looked a little startled, a dog expecting a kick and receiving a bone. “What?” His face opened up slightly, an expression something close to hope that made Eddie’s heart ping traitorously off the walls of his chest. 

“You are not fucking excused from tonight just because I think you’re— well I know you’re— you’re—” he faltered immediately, throat scratchy. “Because I care too much about you to just shoot the fuck off at the mouth at you. Even though I want to, and I kind of already did, and I think I’m still going to.” 

“Stan kind of took care of that already, but—” 

“Yeah, and you fucking deserved it.” He wet his lips. “For the most part.” 

Richie blinked, his mouth twitching as his expression fell. He mulled it over, worrying his lip slightly in his teeth. His voice came out solemn, and Eddie believed him when he said it. 

“I did.” 

This was a fucking disaster. How many times had Eddie daydreamed about unlocking his door with Richie in tow, showing him his stupid tiny little place that he put together himself, where he cooked (for the most part, there were a lot of options for takeout places within walking distance) for himself, which he kept clean as he could by himself, which wanted badly for another person now and then? And how fucking cruel was it that he was finally here, that he’d crossed the entire country to land here and get a fucking talking to, because he _deserved_ a talking to and he’d fucked up and he was in the wrong and Eddie had a right to be mad but above fucking all he just _missed_ him. He didn’t fully realize how much he’d been craving him until he was right in front of him, right here in his place, making him wonder if he should pinch himself. 

“Please,” Richie said, tone achingly dejected, begging clear in his glaze of his eyes behind his glasses, “Eddie, just lay me out, please, don’t just be the bigger person here.” 

“Fuck you.” 

Richie didn’t look quite relieved, but he managed not to flinch. His adams apple bobbed when he swallowed, nodding sullenly. “There you go.” 

“No, not there I go! Fuck you, fuck—” Eddie started, hands shaking so badly all of the sudden he nearly sloshed coffee out of his mug. He drew in a shallow breath, holding back the deluge of words that threatened to spill over. He held the mug against his sternum to keep it steady. Tried hard to think carefully, though his head felt jammed with static, the room tilting at an angle. “You know how I am,” he started, which felt too achingly sincere and a little self deprecating, but which was honest, “you _know_ I’m gonna worry if I don’t fucking hear back from you.” He bit down on the inside of his cheek for a moment, resolve close to faltering for a moment as he watched Richie carefully, steeling himself for the beating. “Call me fucking— paranoid, or selfish, or whatever, for thinking that you not answering me means something’s wrong and not that you’re just— busy with your own thing or we’re just growing apart—” 

“I love you,” Richie said, strikingly calm, blue eyes even as he could keep them trained on Eddie. He swallowed, throat clicking, gaze faltering for only a split second before he went on, voice so soft. “I know that doesn’t make any of this better, but I do, Eddie.” 

“Y—” Eddie started, exasperated, unable to look him in the eye. “Okay, it— no, it doesn’t. It sure as fuck feels like you’re— _fuck,_ why does everything I wanna say sound like I’m some overbearing fucking—” he shook his head, feeling queasy, took another searing sip of coffee, the tip of his tongue going numb. “You can’t get too busy to return my calls then fly up here and fuck up this bad and _then_ say you love me. You can’t do all of that in quick fucking succession because it doesn’t—” he shook his head stubbornly. “No.” 

“I know,” Richie said. 

“I know you love me,” he admitted slowly, because he did. It hurt, somewhere buried deep, some personal Cask of Amontillado Eddie had constructed to seal away this exact thing. That, yes, Richie did love him, and that Stan loved him despite their own issues right now and Beverly loved him, and, truthfully, Myra did too, but that Richie loved him in the way that he’d call him on his birthday but he’d get up and grab his glasses and forget his tie on the way out of the hotel room and not ever bother to talk about it. That Richie loved Eddie, sure, but, according to Bill’s report, Richie loved this girl in California. Loved her how you were supposed to.

How Eddie, try as he might with all he had in him, didn’t love his own girlfriend.

Fiance. 

Whatever.

“I know,” Eddie tried, nearly wincing when his voice cracked. “Even if you haven’t fucking acted like it lately. Lately being— lately being a for while now, Rich.”

He’d gone pale. Eddie, doing a bang up job of keeping it together for all that was crashing down in his brain, noticed a touch of red across Richie’s nose and his cheeks, pink on his forehead, different from the hints of chill slowly melting away from him. Lingering sunburn. Something he was sure, in another deep down hidden hurt place, was also on the back of his neck or the tops of his shoulders, skin reddened and peeled by the California sunshine, something that had never touched Eddie. Something impossible in New York in the dead of winter. 

Richie looked blank, idle, slowly shaking his head after a moment of uncharacteristic perfect stillness. “Eds.”

“Watch it,” Eddie snapped, feeling the break coming on. Feeling anger he’d bottled up starting to well again, carbonation in a shaken up coke bottle festering and shoving at the cap. 

“There’s— _fuck.”_ Richie sank his teeth into his lip, Eddie watching with a pang, noticing it tremble when he shook his head. “I wanna say there’s just been so much going on but it’s—” 

“Yeah, no kidding.” 

“I— we never—” he heaved out a breath, shook his head. “This is too little too late, Eddie.” His voice sounded wrecked, raw, like he hadn’t spoken in his own voice in a long time and was out of practice, overusing it for all this sincerity. “And that’s on me, I know that, but it’s—” he sighed, unsure of how to continue.

His resolve melted slightly, shoulders barely relaxing. “Yeah. Yeah, Richie— it. Yeah.” Eddie hardly recognized the sound of his own voice by now. 

“I know.” 

“Okay.” 

“I’m sorry.” Richie swallowed. He was trembling again, just slightly, those wet clothes weighing him down, and Eddie dearly wanted to offer him a blanket or at least a towel, not wanting him to catch his death over this. “Not just about tonight. Yes, about tonight, I really really fucked up tonight, I was being selfish as shit and I— but for tonight and everything else.” 

It had been years, honest to god years, since Eddie truly felt like he was truly brave. It was easy to lie to himself, to say that swallowing down his pride at Thanksgiving dinner was brave, that walking through the mall to buy the ring was brave, that getting down on one knee was brave, but Eddie knew, deep down, all of that leaned much closer to the side of cowardice. He’d had a hand in his own downfall, everyone always did, no one was completely absolved from it, but he’d been worn down and down and down over time. Pressure cooked into something that wasn’t himself. Pressure on himself, pressure from his mother, from Myra though she didn’t quite know it, from the rest of the world. Numbing, like pouring hydrogen peroxide on a stinging wound, watching it bubble and foam and froth, aching and fighting, until you can't feel anything anymore, until it’s easier to grin and bear it and not dare pick at the scab for fear of the ugliness underneath. 

He could pinpoint the last time he’d felt like he’d really been brave. 

He was standing right in front of him. 

Eddie had decided then in a split second that he wanted something, that he deserved something, and that maybe there was a chance Richie had wanted it too. Even if he hadn’t, Eddie had still tried. Had still gambled, and for a few minutes there, it had paid off. 

Eddie didn’t need to rely on Richie to be brave, but being around him, somehow, made it easier. Had some effect on him, some shared confidence, some security that only belonged to the two of them.

He took a slow sip of his coffee, looking at him over the rim of his mug, heart hammering as he prepared to be brave one more time. He deserved to have this conversation. It was long overdue. 

He tried, words failing him on the first shot. 

“Why—” 

no 

“When—” 

closer, but not quite 

“Oh, god.” 

Overwhelmed. 

Richie blinked worriedly at him, eyebrows turning up in this adorably concerned way that made Eddie’s head spin. “You okay?” 

“Yeah I just got— I got dizzy fuck I’m fine, it’s—” He shook his head. 

_Spit it out._

“I’m still fucking embarrassed, you know that? I’m fucking embarrassed. And we never fucking talked about it, I thought it would be best if we didn’t acknowledge it at first, I just— wanted to forget about it. At first.” 

Not his boldest, but he was trying. Eddie knew Richie understood what he was talking about. He was burning all the way up to the tips of his ears, giving himself a break and dropping his gaze into his coffee mug while understanding sank into Richie. 

Silence fell. Broke, softly, carefully, when Richie spoke again. “The kiss?”

There it was. 

He gestured loosely, clinging to casualty. “The— yeah. The everything.” 

Everything. Every hypersensitive brush of skin on skin, every tiny volt of electricity that passed between them. Every furtive glance since the day they met, every note passed in elementary school, every accidental grin, every clammy palmed clasp of hand in hand, holding hands made things less scary, and everything seemed so terrifying then. Now. Always. Everything. Sharing ice cream cones, sharing a bed, old stories, new stories, confessions over the phone that just couldn’t quite happen but were always present between the lines, curious wine warmed hands in the dark, private laughter, unique understandings, lyrics in misspelled German, cassette tapes, dancing but not too close, kissing but not too deeply, looking but not too long. 

Richie nodded slowly, glancing up at Eddie through his eyelashes like he was guilty. “Yeah.” 

Eddie tried asking again, throat dry, evident in his voice. “Why?” 

“Why what?” 

“Why did that— why did it happen?” asked Eddie, the one who had instigated the whole kiss, who understood to a degree why _that_ had happened, but the everything else? Falling asleep on the couch, in Eddie’s bed. What happened after. Eddie had spent years now blaming himself for the whole of it, insisting he’d pressed something onto Richie, coerced him into something, but with him standing there, with him looking at him like he was, that just wasn’t it. There was more to it. 

Eddie didn’t have to take all the blame, and maybe admitting that to himself was brave too. 

Richie’s mouth worked, opening and closing a few times. He looked, truly, like he was unsure, his face not matching the feigned certainty in his voice. “We were lonely,” he suggested, giving them both an out. He was good at that. 

It was an excuse, and both of them knew it. Eddie couldn’t help the little prickle of anger at the back of his skull, the little tinge of betrayal there. He wanted honesty from him, even if he was having trouble being honest with himself. “Lonely? That’s what lonely looks like to you?”

“I’m very familiar with lonely, I look in the mirror and I see lonely every fucking day of my life, dude.” 

“Richie, shut the—” 

“Do you love her?” 

Eddie stopped, mouth half open, caught off guard. “What?” He knew exactly what, he just needed a moment to collect himself. 

Richie looked surprisingly calm, his voice flat and even. Unperturbed by the sudden shift in subject. He lifted his eyebrows slightly in a way that infuriated Eddie, tipping his head forward slightly. “Myra. Do you love her?” 

He couldn’t help himself from rolling his eyes. Old habit. Dismissive. “I proposed to her, Richie, no one forced me to do this.” 

“That doesn’t answer my question.” 

He didn’t want to answer his question. Eddie felt the corner of his jaw twitch, old stubbornness rising in him. So much for bravery, so much for honesty. It could only get him so far before he shut down, and he could feel it coming on fast. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head as if he could ignore it, a lump budding in his throat. “Do you love— what’s— um— S—”

“Sandy.” 

“Do you love Sandy?” Eddie asked, on full defense. He expected, in the first second of silence after he spoke, for Richie to grow just as dismissive, to try and change the subject, to make hypocrites out of them both. But he settled his shoulders, still lingering quietly by the door, and glanced away for a moment. Eddie realized then he was going to get a dose of that honesty he’d wanted earlier, and that this was going to hurt a lot more than he’d expected. 

Richie was sincere, nodding lightly, the light in his eyes looking a little distant. A little sad. “I think I do, yeah. A little bit.” 

Eddie’s chest burned. His head felt hot. He couldn’t grapple with Richie’s melancholy for a second, frustration starting to build steadily in his chest the more he thought about it. “Then _why—”_

“She broke my heart.” Richie sounded hollow for the first time that night. Scraped clean. Brutal, stinging honesty. “And I don’t know in what fucked up world I can still love someone who broke my heart but I think I do, somewhere. I think I’ll get over it, everyone keeps telling me I will, but right now— it—” he blinked, looking away for a moment, passing a hand over his mouth. “Fuck.” 

Eddie felt his expression soften, felt the tension and anger bleeding out of him, his hands relaxing slightly on his mug, palms feeling sweaty and over-hot. He was glad to have something to hold for the time being, knowing if he didn’t he would have reached out, wanting nothing more than to lay a hand on him. They hadn’t so much as hugged at the door to the restaurant, hadn’t really touched at all, and Eddie’s fingers were suddenly electric with wanting to, even just to soothe him. 

“Eddie, it’s— it’s not even like poking a fucking bruise, I sink my fingers into this open sore every time I think about her and I can’t stop.” The brokenness in his voice was like an open wound, tender and weeping, refusing to clot.

It felt for a moment like Eddie couldn’t speak, but like he had to say something. Anything. Richie couldn’t stand there in silence, not like this, not when Eddie was right here, when they were so close. “Oh,” was all he could supply for a moment, heart squeezing like a white knuckled fist. 

The look on his face. Eddie had seen it somewhere before, among the haziest memories of middle school. The number of times Eddie had followed him into the boys’ bathroom on the far side of the gym, the one with only two stalls that no one hardly ever used, Richie battered and shrugging off help and concern. 

Gravel pressed into his palms, forearms red with road rash, hair matted at the back. The physical evidence of getting pushed around, of getting chased by the bigger kids at recess and caught because Richie was never quite fast enough to get away. Eddie could remember the weight of his own backpack, thumbs hooked securely in the straps for his own comfort, close by preparing to intrude if he deemed fit. 

_“You’re hurt,” he’d observe sometimes, stupidly. Pushy, trying to make it obvious Richie needed his help, needed him. That Eddie needed him to need him._

_“Sticks and stones, dear Edward,” came the resolute response, the brushing-off as Richie turned on the sink and started to rinse out his own scrapes. “Flesh wounds. If they really wanted to get me down, they’d try something original. This I’m used to.”_

_His reflection told a different story when Richie looked up to the image in the mirror of Eddie fretting over his shoulder. That exposed pain behind his eyes, something he couldn’t express directly face to face. The hurt there, the bruises under the skin, the way it wore him down, the constant bullying, the harassment, the torment. It broke Eddie’s heart as much as it enraged him, his small chest tumbling with emotions he was told it didn’t have room for. Had he been braver then he would have reached for his hands anyway, taken him by the wrists, picked out the pebbles and dirt from his palms and thumbed away the pain for him, absorbed it into his own skin if he had to._

But Eddie just stood there, much like he did now, staring down a brokenhearted boy he cared too much about for his own good. 

“You broke up?” His voice was hushed, quiet even in the tiny warm space of the little apartment. 

Richie finally took a breath, sniffed, now the one rolling his eyes as his defenses started to rise again. “Yeah, Eddie. We broke up. She left.” 

_She left._ Then fuck her. It was protectiveness, he knew that, protectiveness that started to take over his thoughts for a moment, mixed with something sort of jealous and sort of ugly. Something else there too which came from a good place, a place where Eddie loved him more selflessly and couldn’t stand seeing him hurting. “Oh.” It might hurt him a little too, deep down, that Richie did love her, had loved her, had been with her in a way he couldn’t be, but it hurt more to see him wrecked after the fact. If anyone knew Richie was a handful, knew that Richie could be hard to get along with while being the easiest person to get along with in the world, it was Eddie. And anyone who would walk away from him must be some kind of idiot. 

He didn’t know this girl. He didn’t know Richie with her, didn’t know their relationship, knew very very little about it in fact, it wasn’t fair for him to make those kind of assumptions, but he figured he could stand to in the moment. That he could be an adult about it later. Right now he just hated to see him hurting, wanted to make it go away. 

“Didn’t get that memo?” 

Eddie bit back, almost not meaning too. Scared of how raw he felt. “Not like you bothered to tell me.”

“Fair point.” 

It was awful, this whole thing was awful. Richie sounding so dejected, not fighting Eddie on any turn. He knew he was sorry, but, fuck, he didn’t want to see him like this. “I—”

There was something vulnerable suddenly in Eddie’s quiet voice that scared Richie. “Stan’s really fucked up about this, isn’t he?” he asked, trying to yank the reins on the conversation, afraid to continue down the road they’d been on. 

It was Eddie’s turn, apparently, to look guilty. It sent a little pang through Richie’s heart, the way he went with the sudden turn in conversation, the way his eyes cast downward. “Yeah. He— he’s worried about me. I told him not to be, but—” 

“Is there more to it.” It wasn’t a question. Richie knew there was more to it. Stanley was a complicated person, someone they loved dearly but who, like each of them, had his flaws, and his deep seated resentment had been shining through all night. Richie knew him too well, knew Eddie too well, to not see there were other factors at play here. 

“Yeah.” That last comment he’d flung at Richie burned even Eddie. Self absorbed. The two of them were going to have to talk about that too, but Eddie couldn’t meddle there. That was between Stan and Richie.

Richie could make those repairs tomorrow, would have to. But he was here tonight. 

Eddie finally set down his coffee mug, still half full and twisted his hands. He didn’t look quite glad, but maybe relieved for the change in topics. They knew each other well enough to switch things up when it got too intense, could sense the changes in one another. For better or for worse. It made Richie’s throat hurt. Eddie went on after a breath to calm himself. “He wanted to propose to Patty on New Year’s. It was going to be a big thing, he talked to her dad and everything. I knew that.” 

Richie watched, helpless, as Eddie beat himself up about it, looking suddenly a hundred miles away and tangled in his thoughts. 

“Did he?” 

“Obviously not.” 

His eyebrows sank. “Why?” 

“Because I proposed. Back in December without telling anybody I was even thinking about it. He— he wanted— I don’t know. He really really loves her, Richie, he’s crazy about her.” He looked chalky and nervous, guilt obviously consuming him. They should have sat down on the couch, should have gotten into dry clothes and talked close to one another, but after all the time and space between them, standing a few feet apart in the kitchen and by the door was as good as they were going to get for now. 

Richie nodded, unsure where to take this. “Yeah. I— I can tell. I’m glad for him. For them, yeah.” 

“I think he wanted it to be really special for her and I think I stepped on that. I proposed before he got the chance and I think it just— I think I fucked it up for him.” He shook his head, pressing shaking hands back against the counter. “I don’t know if that makes a lot of sense, but he’s— he’s particular and this is a big thing for him and I think I ruined it for him.” 

Sore subjects. Richie searched him, and Eddie finally lifted his gaze, looking up at Richie through those heavy lashes. Eyes plagued with regret, mouth downturned slightly. He was miserable, he was heart wrenchingly miserable, and Richie could hardly stand it. It had been bad at dinner, but this, talking it out— all of it hurt. And he had to ask, finally. 

“So you— Myra.” 

Eddie was perfectly still. His damp slacks stuck to him, making him look skinnier, gutted out and thin and tired. “No, Richie,” he said, softly, carefully, as if it was the first time he was admitting it. Maybe it was. “I care about her, I need her, she’s all I fucking have right now, but—” like he was perched on the high dive, staring down at water so far below him it could flatten him on impact. 

Then closed his eyes and jumped, unable to look at Richie. 

“I don’t love her. Not like that.”

It was an inexplicable feeling. It was sad, first and foremost. This whole thing was achingly sad. Richie couldn’t imagine how the hell Eddie had gotten to this point. How he, someone Richie truly believed in his heart of hearts, was one of the strongest people he knew, could look so frail in that moment, so faded. Softened around the edges, a knife that was piercingly sharp when Richie knew him best as a kid, growing blunt over time. His heart sank into his toes as it started to sink in, that it wasn’t his not-quite wishful thinking, that here Eddie was, engaged to someone he didn’t love. With someone he didn’t love for years, staying with her for god knows why, dragging himself through the motions at the cost of himself.

And for what?

Richie’s hands were trembling again. He stuffed them awkwardly into the wet pockets of his pants and clenched fists, words lost, unable to do anything for him here or now. 

Eddie’s tongue darted out to moisten his dry lips. Nervous. Old habit. Softly pink, still, from the cold, from worrying them with his teeth, a white highlight in the low light picked out on the bottom lip, the hint of his teeth. Richie had it once, kissed him just once, remembered so so vividly that tentative press of Eddie’s mouth on his, remembered the exact way he tasted, the scent of his skin, remembered every second of that kiss despite all the kisses with someone else in between. The ferocity in him, something that lived beside something so tender, two things that could only coexist comfortably inside Eddie. A tentative testing of the waters, it felt like, at the time, a precious moment in the midst of something dire and scary and altogether too real, a good so good a guy like Richie wasn’t allowed to have it.

There was nothing he could do to help, but at this, which felt like rock bottom for the both of them, Richie wasn’t sure there was much he could do to really make it worse. The apartment was so small it didn’t take much to cross to the kitchenette, only having to brave a couple steps. He stopped short in front of him, unsure as Eddie looked up. The two of them held that gaze for a moment, hung onto the closeness. He could say something here, could correct the earlier misconception. 

_When I said I love you, I meant I do love you like that. Even if it’s not fair to you, I do._

Maybe it was still too selfish. But Eddie sniffled, not really crying, but looking as if he might. Richie swallowed and let out a slow breath, the space between them tense, wanting to be closed. It was Eddie who raised a hand, crossed those few inches, fingers brushing feather light on Richie’s forearm. A safe touch, on the outside, but something that melted away the remaining ice locking Richie stiffly into place and finally letting him start to relax. He let out a little rushed breath and Eddie, barely, smiled. Just a little twitch in the corners of his lips, his dimples sinking into his cheeks. Richie wanted to run his thumb over his cheekbone, cup his jaw. He didn’t know what it would do, whether it would make anything better or worse, but maybe he should make like Eddie in Chicago and just do something because he wanted it, because the sudden sweetness of the moment called for it. Because Eddie, eyes on his fingers where they met Richie’s skin, blinked up at him again, and Richie saw everything he could ever ask for laid out right in front of him, maybe not his for the taking, but worth the fucking shot. 

A key scrabbled in the lock and Richie jolted backward, feeling Eddie’s hands quickly grasp his biceps on instinct. Eddie swore, fingers digging into him as he looked around, frantic. _“Hide—”_

“Hide??” 

“Fuck—”

“Where am I gonna _hide,_ Eddie, this place is a fucking shoe box— why do I need to hide?”

The door swung open, creaking almost menacingly on its hinges as Eddie slipped out from where he’d relaxed back against the counter, scrabbling to pick up his coffee mug for something to do with his hands. Richie, forgetting orders to hide (was he supposed to crawl into the fridge or something??), froze up as a girl appeared around the door, glancing first up at the lights on in the apartment, looking confused, then at the two of them in the kitchen, eyebrows jumping up.

“Oh god, sorry, I thought you were still going to be out!”

Speak of the devil. 

She was holding a little plastic bag, Richie’s eyes drawn magnetically to the ring on her finger. His throat immediately seized up, back clicking straight, sinking back against the refrigerator with a frantic forced smile and quick glance to Eddie.

He looked a little ruffled, slapping on a smile as well, hands tight and tense on his mug as who could only be Myra shut the door behind her. “No, yeah, we—” fuck, he was a terrible liar, Richie felt his stomach sinking as Eddie faltered— “didn’t end up going out for drinks afterward.” 

Oh thank god. His gaze flickered to Richie and Richie wished he would stop looking, it was making him feel hot and nervous and like they’d been caught doing something wrong. 

Had they been?

He nodded toward Myra to try and encourage him to look the fuck away from him, crossing his arms over his chest and wishing he could sink backwards into the door of the fridge and disappear. 

Eddie looked away from him hurriedly, jerking a thumb in Richie’s direction. 

_Sweet god._

“This is—” 

“Richie, right?” 

Oh, Jesus. He hadn’t had much for dinner, but Richie was worried the moment she turned to look at him that he was going to lose it all over her shoes. She did have green eyes like Eddie said. Green eyes and thick dishwater blonde hair and a sweet, pretty face. Richie didn’t quite know who the hell he’d been picturing whenever she was mentioned, but this wasn’t it. 

“From Colorado?” 

“California,” Eddie and Richie said at the same time, sharing a hectic little glance, then both looking back to Myra. 

She smiled, looking him over briefly. It faded quickly. “Why are you all wet?”

Eddie set his mug down and crossed the kitchen to meet her halfway, steering her away from Richie. “We just got caught in the rain, don’t worry about it.” 

She looked worried about it. “Caught in the rain? Eddie—” 

The smile on Eddie’s face looked painful. This would be fucking hilarious under different circumstances, if Eddie hadn’t just admitted to not loving this girl and if Richie hadn’t been seconds from kissing him and telling him he loved him. 

Oy, vey, was that what he’d been about to do? Hindsight. Richie felt his face flush, looking desperately for a quick escape route.

“Just rain,” Eddie tried to reassure her, setting his coffee down and taking the bag from her a little abruptly, the plastic rustling. “What’s this?”  
Myra looked a little baffled, looking over Richie, who still felt like a wet rat, before evidently deciding to drop it. “It was going to be a surprise, I was going to just drop it off in your fridge while you were still out. It’s cheesecake.” 

Wow, okay, so green eyes, check, she’s great, check. Cheesecake, huh?

“Cheesecake?” Eddie extracted a little take out box from the plastic bag. 

“Yeah, I went out to dinner with the girls, remember? We went to that place you like near downtown with the good desserts. It’s strawberry.” 

Richie felt sickeningly like he was intruding, but Myra seemed blissfully unaware. Eddie stared at the box in his hands, at Richie, then back at Myra, eyes a little wild. “Oh, wow—” he swallowed, thick and audible. “Thank you.”

She smiled again, sweetly, and Richie watched Eddie look over her face and go a little pale. He cleared his throat, which sounded tremendously awkward and nearly made Richie wince, and shoved the little box back into the bag and wrapped it up in the plastic, holding onto it tightly. “So—” he started, Richie not missing the way he sort of dodged as she moved closer, making a beeline for the fridge. Richie’s pulse picked up as he approached, quickly sidestepping and getting out of his way. Eddie flung the door open and sort of haphazardly tossed the box inside, shutting it and leaning back against it where Richie had been a second ago. “I was just about to walk Richie out.”

“So soon?” 

“I have to go change,” Richie said, and Eddie looked eternally grateful for the valid excuse. “Don’t wanna catch a cold, right?” 

“That’s actually a myth,” Myra said, and Richie blinked. “You don’t get a cold just from being cold and wet, but I can’t imagine you’re comfortable.” 

“Oh, baby, you don’t know the half of it,” Richie muttered, and Eddie chose then to make their escape. 

“I’ll be right back,” he said, hands a little rough when he turned Richie toward the door to march him out. 

Eddie was going to develop an ulcer. Three seconds of those two in the same room and he was genuinely going to give himself an ulcer. He was already getting a headache, but then again, the collapse of tension from the whole night was enough to do that to him. 

Richie, god fucking love the bastard, was already talking again the moment the door shut behind them. 

“So,” he started. “That’s the girl?” 

“That’s— yeah, that would be Myra.” 

“Alright.” 

_“Alright?”_

Maybe he sounded a little too amused for his own good. _“‘Hide’?”_

“Don’t fucking start, Richie,” Eddie growled, marching him down the hallway toward the elevator. “I panicked.” His cheeks were tinted pink. He was still barefoot, looking just on the side of ridiculous in his soaking wet slacks and dry sweatshirt. 

Butterflies. God, had Richie missed him. 

“Really? I couldn’t tell.” 

“This isn’t funny.” 

“So is this just like the time I snuck into your house and you hid me under your bed when she came home early?” 

“I was grounded, Richie—” 

“Then pushed me out the fucking window and almost broke my back?”

“I didn’t _push_ you—”

“You might as well have! Christ, you were in such a goddamn hurry to get me the fuck out of there you knocked the wind right out of me. Not the first time you took my breath away, though, I have to be honest.” 

And Eddie laughed. It sounded a little startled, definitely unintentional, and he stopped short, hands still pressed to Richie’s back. 

Richie turned around, grinning like a fool in a way he shouldn’t be allowed to, not after everything tonight, but in a way he sometimes couldn’t help around him. 

Eddie was halfway between bristling and fond. He crossed his arms over his chest in an attempt to look more bristling, but Richie could see him gnawing on the inside of his cheek as he looked Richie over, eyes a little slow up and down him. Richie gulped. 

His voice dropped, hushed, as if Myra could hear them halfway down the hall, seriousness dropping into his tone. “How long are you staying?” 

“I— I have an early flight out. Tomorrow. So just tonight.” 

Eddie’s face was still tinted pink, eyes turning down, dejected. Mulling. Richie watched him carefully, wondering just how worth it it would be to skip the flight and linger around for a while. Not like the city was particularly beautiful this time of year, but he had something worth weathering the storm for. 

“Please don’t disappear, Rich,” Eddie said. 

Richie’s mouth twitched a little. He had to stuff his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for him. “I can’t now, not after we both just spilled our guts like that. We have dirt on each other now.” 

It was a little weak, but Eddie would buy it. For tonight. He wasn’t satisfied: far from it, he felt particularly torn up, conflicted in an especially tortuous way, but he, for the sake of his sanity., had to believe him. He breathed slow, in, out, careful, and nodded. “You’d better not.”

“I won’t.” 

Something in the air changed when he lifted his gaze to look at Richie. There was that old look, that intensity in Richie’s gaze Eddie could only catch on occasion, one that made heat zip up the back of his neck. 

They weren’t out of the woods yet. Eddie couldn’t go there now. 

Richie’s eyes simmered as he looked down at him, making Eddie’s stomach wind into a knot. One hand lifted just slightly, his fingers curling in, tentative. “Hey, Eds.” 

“Don’t.”

“Come back to the hotel with me.” It was meant to be cool, meant to be almost sweet, but something betrayed Richie’s desperation. 

Eddie, for the first time, realized that maybe Richie was afraid of losing him too. 

“No,” Eddie said, firm, resolute. He took a quick little breath then jabbed Richie hard in the sternum, making him back up a step. “Apologize to me, right now. Everything. You’re always talking about your fucking silver tongue or whatever, convince me to forgive you for all of this shit right now or so help me god—” 

Richie took him by the wrists immediately, nearly punching the breath out of Eddie, and stepped to him. They were still out in the hall, but the motion created a private space for them, a snow globe moment. His gaze didn’t waver, emboldened by something, touch hot on Eddie’s skin. 

“I’m sorry for the time I dropped that worm in your Pepsi.” 

Eddie blinked, eyebrows shooting up, mouth opening for a split second before Richie cut him off. 

“I’m sorry for that time you fell off your bike and I didn’t notice for a second so I walked off and—” 

“Richie, Jesus fucking Christ—”

“You said everything!” 

“Not since—” he sighed, exasperated, and it pitched up for a second. He swallowed down the almost laugh, fondness pressing warm tendrils at the insides of his ribs, struggling to hold his resolve. “Not since we fucking met, Richie, we’d be here all fucking night—” 

“I don’t mind.” 

Eddie tried to ignore that little lightning bolt. “You know what I mean.” 

Richie nodded, and Eddie felt his shoulder blades draw together as Richie readjusted his grip on his wrists, hands moving up just slightly to his elbows. Eddie stood there, staring down at his fingers wrapped gently around his arms, feeling all kinds of things he had to ignore, looking up only when Richie continued. 

It spilled out of him like a dam breaking, mouth not stopping once he was started. “I’m sorry I left you before high school. It wasn’t my choice, but I’m still sorry, Eddie, I didn’t want to go. I’m sorry I didn’t take advantage of being closer when I was in college, I could have come and seen you way more often than I did—”

“I could have done the s—”

“I’m apologizing here, shut up."

Eddie shut up.

"I’m sorry— I’m sorry I never acknowledged what happened when I stayed with you. I was scared you didn’t wanna talk about it, I didn’t wanna freak you out. I’m sorry I left my lights on when you came all the way out to save my ass when my fucking tire exploded, I’m not sorry I let you help, though, I think about that a lot, that was kind of—”

“Richie.” 

“Right, sorry, sorry for that. I— Chicago. Jesus, Eddie, I don’t think I can ever apologize enough for that. That was pure cowardice. I should have talked to you about it sooner. I’m sorry for shutting down on you after you started dating Myra. I’m sorry for running away again. I’m not— I can’t be entirely sorry I moved to California though, Eddie, I really think I’m supposed to be there right now, but I’m sorry about the timing and how I dropped that bomb and I wish I’d come and seen you in person before I left. And I’m sorry I didn’t keep up with you. I’m sorry I didn’t talk about any of that shit sooner.” He wet his lips, took a little breath, talking too fast. Eddie’s hands were trembling lightly, a little overwhelmed by it, but he couldn’t move away from him. Couldn’t look away from him. “I can’t believe— you shouldn’t have had to go through any of this shit alone, Eds.” 

“I—”

“I’m so fucking sorry about tonight. This— it’s all bad, Eddie, but I— I didn’t help anything. I'm sorry I tried to take the easy way out by running off to go powder my nose and I shouldn't have yelled at you outside and I could have done literally anything else and I promise I’ll pay for your dry cleaning and I’ll pick up the phone, Eddie, okay, I don’t know what the fuck your plan is here but— I’ll be there for whatever, okay" He swallowed harshly, a little breath escaping him. "Thick and thin, man.” 

He looked like there was more, like he could keep going for hours if Eddie let him, but Richie caught the look in Eddie’s eyes and his expression softened a little, eyes flitting around Eddie’s face. 

“How— how was that?” he asked. 

All he could do was nod, slow, dazed. Richie’s eyes were wide and honest behind the thick panes of his glasses, his lips just barely parted, breath just slightly elevated. Eddie’s pulse was pounding where his thumbs pressed lightly into the crooks of his elbows, scared Richie could feel it. His eyes roamed, finding his hands placed carefully on him, the rise and fall of Richie’s chest where his shirt still stuck to him, the little flush down his neck, the spot he missed shaving on the corner of his jaw, the little red marks on the side of his nose where his glasses pressed into the skin, the traces of sunburn, the loose way his hair had dried, frizzy and unkept, the hints of dark circles under his eyes, the light behind them, his mouth,

Eddie tucked himself against him, burying his face into his shoulder to keep himself from doing something stupid, throwing his arms around his back and holding onto him for all he was worth. “You know," Eddie started, hardly above a hoarse whisper. "I think that’ll do it." It came out muffled and a little wavering, something finally welling over in him one last time tonight. Richie’s wet shirt was cold against his cheek, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind, glad he wouldn’t leave tear stains if it came to that. As Richie, cautious at first, then full bodied and warm, slid his arms around Eddie’s waist to squeeze him back and bury his nose in his hair, Eddie jabbed him in the ribs, startling him. “For now, don’t get comfortable.” 

He could feel him laugh, could feel his ribs shake with it, could feel the relief flooding him, could feel, vividly, his rapid heartbeat in his chest. Which was broader, Eddie failed not to notice, warm even under the damp clothes. Eddie could only bundle himself closer, realizing he still smelled the same, not wanting to let him go until he'd memorized it again. 

“I’ll take it, Eddie.” 

“I’m sorry too. I really am, I—” 

Richie's voice was a little softer, tender than his words wanted. “Don’t start, cmon.” His hand rubbed idly down Eddie's spine. 

He didn’t. Eddie couldn’t keep track of how long they held each other there, in the drafty hallway of his apartment building, but when they finally broke apart, the front of Eddie’s sweatshirt was damp from squeezing his wet rodent friend so long. He was going to feel the ghost of his hands all night, all week, maybe, scared, if just a little, to have them one more time when he hadn't for so long. 

Trying not to let Richie see the lingering hints of tears, good tears, for once, Eddie punched him lightly in the arm. “Okay, you’ve officially overstayed your welcome. Get out of here.” 

“Call me?” 

Eddie’s eye snapped up and Richie held up his hands in defense, smiling anyway. “Okay, okay, or I’ll call you.” 

“Go, before I change my mind on forgiving you for any of this. You really do need to get out of those clothes, I’m already worried you’re gonna freeze on the way back as it is—” 

“I’m going, I’m going, Christ.” 

And he went. Richie, after a dragging glance, expression only faltering for a second as he calmly turned, taking the last few steps to the elevator and pressing the buttons. 

“Richie—”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

It took an effort not to crack up to get the words out. “There’s literally fucking spaghetti all over your back.” 

Eddie could take Richie’s weird laugh like a painkiller. That would be a drug way too easy to abuse. They both broke for a moment, finally sharing a stupid giddy little moment of laughing at each other, at the whole thing, when the elevator dinged, cutting them off a little harshly with the reality of time still turning. 

Eddie shut up again, preparing himself to watch him go. 

Richie stepped one foot into the elevator. 

“Eddie?”

“Yeah?” 

“I’ll be your best man when you marry somebody you’re crazy about. Like batshit head over heels. How’s that sound?” 

“I think—” the doors nearly closed on him, and Richie yelped as he pushed back at them to stop them. Eddie wheezed a little, cheeks hurting just a smidge from the smile. “Yeah, Richie, sure, I’ll take you up on that, I think. I'm not fucking done with you, you got it?” 

“Okay.” 

“Go home, Richie.” 

“Goodnight, Eddie.” 

Richie disappeared behind the elevator doors with a sense of something, thankfully, far from finality. Heart hammering, head buzzing, Eddie turned back toward his apartment, back toward Myra still waiting for him inside, back toward more than one difficult task ahead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> songs mentioned:  
> Never Let Me Down Again - Depeche Mode  
> Say You Love Me - Fleetwood Mac  
> Heart of Glass - Blondie
> 
> thanks for all the continued love and support and feedback and thank you for reading!
> 
> kickass [fanart](https://kiogenic.tumblr.com/post/636888499736526848/yall-should-read-i-left-my-umbrella-at-home-on-ao3) of the boys by my friend and cowriter k ([twitter](https://twitter.com/trashmouthjamz)/[tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/kiogenic))!
> 
> feel free to say hi or send fanart to my twitter or tumblr, i sometimes hunt for it in the tags but i love to see what everyone has to say/draw about/for this fic and with your permission i'll post art in the end notes!


	24. THE BOYS AND BEV (AND EDDIE)

**12 JANUARY 2000**

**CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - NEW YORK, NEW YORK**

**1:27AM - 2:27 AM**

“Hey! You just caught me, I just got home.” 

“Hey, hi, I— I’m glad I caught you, yeah. Christ, you  _ just _ got home?” 

“How’d it go? I was just about to call you once I got settled in.” 

“Oh, do you wanna settle in first? I don’t wanna—” 

“No, Eddie, trust me, I’d much rather hear about this first, I’m all ears. The shoes are off, my ass is in the easy chair.” 

“Oh. Okay.” 

“Eddie? You still there?”

“Yeah sorry— actually— can I maybe not talk about tonight?” 

“What?” 

“It— everything’s okay, just—” 

“Eddie, what happened?” 

“Do you want— maybe you could tell me about your thing tonight first and then— no, no, sorry.” 

“Hey, are you okay?” 

“Is it— fuck.”

“Eddie.” 

“Is it okay if I be honest and say no?”

“I— would much rather you be honest and say no, honey, what’s wrong?”

“That’s sort of a loaded question.” 

“I know something’s up, Eddie.”

“Do you?” 

“Yeah, I do, actually. There’s no need to sound defensive, it’s okay, but I’ve been talking to Bill and Stanley lately and y— ” 

“Beverly.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m actually really fucking overwhelmed at the moment, do you think we could maybe change the subject for just— a second. I was gearing up for something but I need—”

“Yeah, no, no worries, it’s okay. Take your time.” 

“Okay. How was your um— your event?” 

“My event was good, yeah. I was kind of hoping we’d actually get to interact with the designers a little more, but it was kind of fun working backstage. I got to work pretty closely with a couple models, so maybe there’s connections there.” 

“That’s always a plus.” 

“Yeah, it was alright. I wish I was there with you guys, though, I really do. It was a worthwhile experience and everything, but— you get what I mean.” 

“Yeah, I do. I really wish you could have been here. I mean I understand, I just—”

“I get you.” 

“Yeah. Um. He wasn’t there, was he?” 

“He was.” 

“Jesus fuck—” 

“No, Eddie, it’s okay, he’s kept his distance just fine. I think he finally got the message. We just work in the same industry in the same town, we’re bound to see each other here and there.” 

“I don’t like it.” 

“Thank you, guard dog, but it’s okay. I know I dodged a bullet, but— hey.” 

“Yeah?” 

“You never told the guys, did you?” 

“Never told them what? That Tom is still, unfortunately, alive, well, and not in prison already? Or that—”

“That, yeah.” 

“No, of course not. It was already over by the time Richie— by the time  _ any _ of us uh— had the misfortune to meet him, anyway.”

“I know. I’m still honestly kind of embarrassed about it though. Thank you for keeping it quiet, I just— I don’t know.” 

“Embarrassed?”

“You wouldn’t be embarrassed if an ex of yours took a swing at one of the guys? Embarrassed you ever associated with someone like that?” 

“Keyword being ex, Bev, like I said it was already over, that’s not your fault.” 

“I know, and I don’t wanna drag this out while you’re going through something—”

“No, please, the distraction is welcome, trust me. And you’re clearly not done talking about it yet.” 

“I am, I’m really over it, Eddie, but I think I’ll feel guilty until the day I die that Richie had to get involved at all, that he got  _ hurt,  _ but— you can’t tell him I said this.” 

“Cross my heart.” 

“I’m not glad it happened, not by a long shot, but I think that kinda drove the final nail into the coffin.” 

“As far as you not getting back with him?” 

“Yeah. We’d been off and on, you remember.” 

“Oh, I remember.” 

“It— it was on my mind. Admittedly. And then that happened. And then, thank god, it was no longer on my mind ever again. And I feel stupid that it took him beating on one of my friends—”

“No, I get it. That’s just— it’s the whole thing where red flags don’t look like red flags unless— like when you’re at the center of a situation and you can’t step back and look at it objectively until you’re not the only person involved—

“Yeah.”

“It just takes stepping a little outside and looking at it from another angle.” 

“You do give pretty okay advice sometimes, Eddie.” 

“I try.”

“But I also think you could use it yourself.” 

“I don’t think anybody I know could give me advice on getting out of this fuckall corner I’ve backed myself into.”

“I was talking about your own advice. Take it.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah, oh,  _ dingus.” _

“We’re talking about you and your issues, don’t  _ dingus _ me.”

“Hey, I’m working out my issues. I’ve decided swearing off dating until I’m a fully actualized person is a mistake, because people are constantly growing and if I wait until I’m done growing I’ll be waiting forever, and I got back on track with my rent, and I finally got my list of grad schools together and I’m going to start applying soon. So. Check and mate.” 

“That’s not check or mate, you still have tons of fucking issues.” 

“Look who’s talking.” 

“I’m glad you’re getting yourself back out there.”

“Hardly. I just said I haven’t sworn it off, I’m still figuring things out on that front. It’s not that I don’t trust myself—”

“You don’t trust other people?”

“No, I mean yeah, that’s part of it, it’s scary to think how much I overlooked the warning signs in Tom, but— I think I’m almost there.”

“That’s good.” 

“Yeah, I think it is good. And I talked to my aunt lately, in part because I was scared I was gonna lose my apartment and have to move back in with her, but it was nice to call home for once.” 

“Wow, for once you do sound like you’re actually doing okay and not lying through your teeth to me.” 

“Yeah, Kaspbrak, maybe you could take that note for yourself too.”

“I’m not lying through my teeth. I am okay.” 

“Eddie.”

“Okay, I’m— I will be okay.” 

“Okay, that’s something. Are you going to tell me what happened tonight?” 

“I will. Eventually.” 

“I love you, bud, but why did you call me if not to fill me in on this?” 

“Because— a lot happened and then I did a lot of thinking which is why I’m still awake and I think I just needed to confide in you but I’m kind of having trouble now that I’m right up to the part where I have to confide something in you and I trust you but it’s just kind of something that’s been— really really fucking me up for a long time now and I know that nothing gets better if you don’t just accept it and move on but—” 

“Eds—”

“It’s just that sometimes— all the time? Maybe? It kind felt like it was the guys and you and me, like we were sort of the odd ones out, sometimes, because you were the girl and I was—” 

“Hey, Eddie? I need you to take a deep breath.”

“Okay.” 

“Better?” 

“A little.” 

“Okay. I hope you know not one of us fits in anywhere, that’s why we were all together, right? Thus the Loser’s Club? You fit right in because you didn’t, Eddie, and not only that but because we all love you. You weren’t the odd one out, I wasn’t either. Although, yeah, there’s definitely something to me being the token girl, you guys sometimes made a bigger deal of that than you maybe should have.”

“Sorry.”

“We were kids. You guys have all shaped up when it comes to that shit by now. Actually makes me kind of proud.” 

“Except for when we all run around to open a door for you.” 

“I’ll never deny you guys a chance to trip over yourselves for me, that’s fine.”

“Okay, as long as we have your seal of approval on it.” 

“Absolutely, trip away.” 

“Yeah, we will.” 

“You will. That I have faith in.”

“Jesus, don’t get sappy on me, Marsh, please. I’ve been through enough.” 

“You sound like it. Oh, Jesus, that was a big sigh. Got something heavy to get off your chest, huh?” 

“I— yeah. I think I sort of do.”

“I’ve got you, Eddie. No worries.” 

“I just— I think I need to tell somebody. Out loud. I’ve never— I mean I’m not just calling you because you’re not here and I’m too chicken to say it to your face, I promise, I-I-I— really wish you were here, actually, I—” 

“Hey, dude, slow down, you’re okay.” 

“I’m okay.” 

“You sound like you’re crying.” 

“I um. I am, a little, okay? I am.” 

“Are you sure you don’t wanna talk about tonight?” 

“Later.” 

“Okay...You still there?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I— oh, man.” 

“Take your time.” 

“You have to promise me Bev, you can’t— you can’t tell anybody. Especially not the guys, okay, please—”

“Eddie, I need to inform you I am currently holding my hand up in a completely honest Girl-Scout-honor pinkie promise gesture here.” 

“You were never a Girl Scout—” 

“Play along and hold up your stupid pinkie or don’t, Eddie.” 

“Fine.” 

“Okay. There. Long distance pinkie promise, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Satisfactory?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Eddie, I love you no matter what, okay? Oh, god, don’t cry—”

“I wasn’t crying!” 

“Oh my god, okay. What do you need to tell me?”

“The uh— right. Yeah. I— the thing is that I’m actually— I happen to—” 

“Eddie.”

“I’m gay.” 

_ “F—” _

“What was that??” 

“Nothing, I dropped the phone, I’m fine—”

“You d- you dropped the phone?” 

“Not because of what you said!” 

_ “Beverly!”  _

“No no it’s great that’s— that’s awesome, Eddie, I’m actually really really proud of you, okay, it’s just— oh, honey.” 

“Oh honey what?” 

“You’re in a sticky goddamn unfortunate situation now, aren’t you?” 

“Yeah, but I could figure  _ that _ much out on my own, thanks so much. Fuck.”

“Okay, that’s— I’m glad you called me, Eddie, we can figure this out, it’ll be okay.”

“Okay.” 

“You don’t sound convinced in the least.”  
“I’m not.”

“You’re gonna be okay, okay? This— oh, boy, it’s gonna be rough for a little but it’ll be fine, yeah? You— you do— you uh. You realize you do have to tell h—”

“I know I  _ know _ oh god, Bev, don’t even  _ mention _ that yet just thinking about it makes me wanna swallow batteries—” 

“Okay yes shelve that conversation for a later date then that’s fine, we’ll uh. We’ll work on that. Um. Eddie?” 

“Yeah?”

“How are you doing, like, right now?” 

“Right now? I’m fucking— pacing my kitchen at like 3AM like a freak, my heart’s still sort of racing but I’m— fucking alive, I guess. Wasn’t the total end of the world.” 

“Yeah, okay, that’s— something. That’s good!”

“You’re going to give me ulcers, Beverly, I swear to god.” 

“You give yourself ulcers. But uh— may I ask a quick question?” 

“Uh— depends on the question?”

“Is there any particular reason you’re just realizing this now? After— you know. Any reason for this uh— particular timing?”

“Oh, Bev, fuck, I’m—  _ kshh— _ sorry Bev I’m  _ kshh _ tunnel  _ kshh—”  _

“Eddie Kaspbrak don’t you  _ dare—” _

“Love y _ kshh  _ I gotta go  _ kshhh kshh _ to you later thankyoumissyoubye—”

“You don’t even own a cellphone— I know you can hear me fuckyou _ Eddieyoulittlebrat— _ Jesus, fucking Christ. What the fuck am I gonna do with—”

“With what?”

“With  _ you. _ Cretin. I thought you were hanging up.”

“I— couldn’t.”

“Thought so.” 

“Thank you. 

“Aw, Eddie—”

“I am not crying.” 

“You’re crying a little and you’re gonna make me cry too, so watch it.” 

“Just let me say thank you, okay?” 

“I’m happy for you.” 

“What?” 

“I just am. You’re tough, kiddo. This is—”

“Uncharted territory.” 

“It is. But maybe there’s something good out there, who knows.” 

“You sound delirious, I think you need to go to bed.”

“No, Eddie, I think I’m just sort of hopeful for the first time in a while. And I think you could stand to be, too.” 

“Thanks, Bev. Really, just— thank you. I— sorta needed this.”

“I can tell. It’s gonna be okay.” 

“I love you.” 

“I love you too, buddy. You little weirdo.” 

“Go to bed.” 

“I’m going to. Do you wanna call me tomorrow and fill me in on the rest?” 

“I might.” 

“Waiting with bated breath here.” 

“Jesus, yes, fine, I will. Okay? I’ll give you the rundown. It was a mess. It was a real fucking mess, I’m still probably going to be pissed about it tomorrow with good reason, but—” 

“It’s the boys.” 

“It is. I still love them.”

“Me too. Gnite, Eddie.”

“Give ‘em hell, Bev.” 

“Always.” 


	25. FLEETWOOD MAC’S “RUMORS” IS ARGUABLY A DAMN GOOD SOUNDTRACK IF YOU’RE PLANNING ON UPENDING YOUR LIFE

**17 JANUARY 2000**

**LOS ANGELES**

**9:45PM**

Richie learned on the plane ride home (which he very nearly missed despite being up nearly all night) that one could order a stiff drink over six miles in the air if one so pleased. 

Then one was footed with the ungodly overpriced bill upon landing. This was a considerably less welcome discovery. Richie was lucky Randy had offered to pick him up from the airport; he wouldn’t have been able to afford a cab ride all the way home with his remaining pocket change. 

The rest of the week was a stumble and a trip into Thursday night, which found Richie seated at the bar next to Steve after a less than impressive set. Any other time, Richie could have sketched out a great story of getting coked up and clumsy in a steakhouse, but, oddly enough, his sense of humor on the matter had been long lost to stale peals of guilt. It simply didn’t feel like a laughing matter. Not with Eddie’s face, frozen halfway between rage and humiliation, swimming into the view of his mind’s eye every time he even silently tried to think of a joke about it. He’d had to lean back on some old reliable material, but had still managed to miss the mark. 

Mind elsewhere, Richie was keen on nursing his much more reasonably priced (and mercifully discounted) JD and Cokes with both feet, if not on the ground, firmly planted on the crossbar of his barstool. 

“I’ve decided. I’m getting you a writer.” 

Richie hummed around his stir stick, gnawing on it idly. At the moment, his elsewhere mind was struggling to read lemon yellow sticky notes on chipped blue cabinets from memory. The smell of the apartment lingered on him. It was a place he’d found himself returning to more frequently as the week pressed on, a moth ball and fabric softener scented retreat. A good place to find refuge after the mediocre reception on stage. He was working steadily through his second drink, he might fancy himself a third tonight. 

Steve snapped his fingers rather rudely in front of his nose. “Hey, Tozier, snap the fuck out of it.”

His nose twitched, eyes sliding sideways to the man seated next to him. “Christ, I’m just a little distracted. Still on earth.” Just a couple thousand miles away. 

Steve’s edges had only sharpened during the time Richie had come to know and work with him. He was a pressed sort of handsome by 26, like a clean pleat in the front of an old fashioned pair of slacks. The lights over the bar picked out severe highlights in his neatly gelled hair, so black it was nearly blue. Richie had always noticed a certain coldness in his gaze, his eyes more grey than blue, the light behind them always a touch frantic. He was easy to rile and easier to stress out. Richie couldn’t help but enjoy pissing him off from time to time, if just for something to do. 

“We can’t  _ afford _ distracted right now,” Steve hissed. Richie couldn’t help but notice his use of  _ we. _ It was  _ you _ when Richie was fucking up and  _ we _ when Richie was doing well. Or, in this case, needing to do better. Steve pressed on. “I’m getting you a  _ writer, _ are you even listening to me?”

It landed that time. Although Richie couldn’t rightfully say he was very pleased when it did. He straightened up, letting the abused straw fall from his mouth. “Wait a minute—”

“And we’re going to find you a better fucking venue, this place is becoming old news fast. You desperately need a younger audience, struggling to get a laugh out of these geriatrics is going to turn  _ you _ into old news.”

“A _ writer?”  _

“I’ve said it  _ twice, _ Rich, Jesus fucking  _ Christ _ , keep up. Your material is drying up, I’m not having you burn out on me this fucking early.”

“We’ve been working together for two years, dude.”

“And how much progress have you made, Rich? You’re still only doing alternating Fridays here, you’re still stuck in the Thursday rut. Not to mention you turned down a fucking Saturday at this dump last week for your little vacation. So yes, I’m finding you a writer. I don’t know what the fuck happened in New York or what the fuck has been going on with you lately, but I’m starting to lose the ability to care. I thought you were just yucking it up after the breakup, but come on, Rich, seriously. It’s been a while for that too.” 

Richie’s hand involuntarily tightened around his glass. Steve’s eyes traced down his arm to his white knuckles then back up to Richie’s face, expression even. Richie’s voice carried more strain than he would have liked. “I don’t need a fucking  _ writer,  _ Steve, I don’t want one—” 

Steve cut in quick. “You’re getting one. This isn’t just you, Rich, you’re under a contract— which you should be grateful for. You’ve been flying by the seat of your pants for a while on sheer dumb luck alone since the start, and I’m not gonna watch you crash and burn when it inevitably runs out.”

“Don’t quit your day job.” 

Richie jumped when Steve’s hand clamped around his wrist, effectively preventing him from lifting his drink to finish it off. He felt something angry twist in his gut as he shot Steve a look, met only with that steel gaze. 

“I’m trying to get you to a place where you can quit  _ yours, _ prick.” 

“I told you I was thinking about bartending here. Wasn’t that your last brilliant recommendation?”

“Not _ here,  _ we’re moving on from here. We need your face and your personality paraded around elsewhere, that’s my point.” 

“I like it here.” 

“Richie,” Steve said, voice dangerously even. He released Richie’s wrist when the bartender cast them a curious glance, recoiling as if burned. He shook his hand out then returned it to the cool glass of his gin and tonic. “I’m not your friend.” 

Richie’s nose crinkled. “Noted.” 

“I am your agent. My job isn’t to coddle you and check in on you and make sure you’re fucking fed and watered and not chewing on the goddamn furniture. My job is to get you places. I’ve stuck with you because I really think you could, but you’ve been stagnating on purpose.”

Richie didn’t spend much time considering that last point. Didn’t care to, even if it held a sliver of truth. Brain busy. “So you’re finding me a writer to what, punish me?”

“No, if you have someone at least editing your raw material you can focus on your delivery so you don’t tank again like tonight. Ideally, we have someone handing you a finished set you can take and actually  _ perform. _ Remember how we talked about building a brand.” 

“Right.” Richie remembered. He was hard pressed not to roll his eyes. His  _ brand. _ In all honesty, Richie enjoyed the comfort of Tortoiseshell. He didn’t enjoy how much he sweated every time he opened his utility bills each month, sure, but the club had provided a sense of consistency when things elsewhere in life had, admittedly, fallen apart. Had given him an alright start. Sandy fucked off to Seattle, Richie continued performing at the same old place. It was a security blanket. The tiniest sparks of hope (for what, Richie was hesitant to consider) from the past weekend had been drowned out by a chronic case of overthinking, leaving him further unsettled, but just being in the club made things feel normal again. Shit set or not. Thoughts still wandered and meandered about his brain, but at least he felt steady on his stool. 

Need to talk to Eddie, can’t lose touch again. 

Need to talk to  _ Stan. _

Need to talk to Bev, love Bev, miss Bev. 

Eddie single yet question mark? 

Does it matter? 

Ulterior motives? 

Fuck off. 

Richie shook his head to clear it.  _ Brand. _ “And my brand isn’t selling? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” 

“You’re a funny guy, don’t get me wrong.” 

Richie frowned, letting out a rough breath through his nose. “I should fucking hope so.”

“You and me both, pal.” Steve’s dry tone didn’t falter. “This is a just boost.”

“A boost.” 

“Yes. My father has connections to a couple writers we can interview. You’ll get to chat with them, but you have to pick from my pool. We’ll find you somebody you want to roll with who I think can take us places.” 

Richie downed the rest of his drink before Steve could stop him, earning a scolding look. Fucking school marm. “May I ask one question?” 

“Yeah, if you make it quick.”

“What’s so wrong with my material? I was flighty tonight, sure, but I’ve delivered a couple of those same bits and landed them before.” 

Steve had a bad habit of making Richie feel examined. In part, it was his job, as he did deal heavily in  _ brands, _ but he could have squirmed under the slow once over that Steve gave him before pulling in a quick little breath. “Rich, I’m gonna be honest.” Oh, joy. “You pull from life, and I like that. But your life just doesn’t sound that fucking exciting anymore. A good comedian can make a set out of even a boring fucking story, and I have faith in you, sure, but you need some goddamn help. I dunno if its your head or your heart that’s not in it right now, but we’re getting you a fucking organ donor, for fucks sake. Capiche?”

Richie didn’t actually want to crash and burn. Richie did want to do well. Richie felt like he did, for the most part, do well. He had this  _ something _ he was good at and people kept telling him he could do  _ something _ with it. And while he was proud that he wrote his own shit, he didn’t pay Steve to pat him on the back when a pat on the back wasn’t due. He was there to give him a swift ass kicking when he needed it, even if Richie sometimes resented him for it. They were both there to make money off of each other, bleak as it sounded. And Richie had left a fucking light on in his apartment the whole weekend while he was gone. He was dreading that bill, even if the difference wouldn’t be too much in the long run. 

Steve couldn’t afford distracted, Richie couldn’t afford an extra ten bucks on utilities here and there. 

He took a breath. Took a sip. “Fine.”

“Alright.” Steve clapped a hand to Richie’s shoulder, squeezing perhaps a smidge too tight. Another bad habit of his. A hand that, lately, lingered. Richie slid his gaze up, looking at where he held him for a moment, catching Steve’s gaze accidentally. Something hung in the air, a moment which fizzled out quickly as Steve stood up and straightened his shirt, releasing Richie in a way that made him feel the absence of touch. “I’ll talk to my people.” 

“I’ll talk to mine.” He really should. 

Steve rolled his eyes. “Yeah, funny. Monday, office. How’s noon?” 

“Noon Monday. Sure.” Richie lifted his empty glass in a wry cheers, setting it back down heavily as Steve, with one last scrutinizing glance, made for the door.

Only then did Richie get his chance to ask for another god forsaken refill.

**18 JANUARY 2000**

**QUEENS, NEW YORK**

**5:47PM**

Eddie figured it was a good thing that Vince’s car made so much goddamn noise. He really didn’t need empty space to think. The Pontiac rumbled idly outside of the apartment, radio humming, engine chugging, as Eddie stared unseeingly through the windshield from the passenger seat. It was foggy around the edges where the warmth of the defroster didn’t quite reach, the familiar street blanketed in grey winter haze.

Vince popped a sucker out of his mouth, undoubtedly from the jar on the counter at his dad’s shop. “So, you just want me to hang out out here?” 

Eddie’s face burned. He knew it was a weird situation. He knew it was probably too much to ask after Eddie hadn’t worked with him in so long. He’d visited the shop here and there, had actually taken his own car in recently to see if anything could be done about the heater, but hadn’t been employed there for a while now. The two of them really weren’t friends outside of work anyway. But when Eddie had called him, miraculously, Vince had agreed. 

Eddie took a deep breath, nerves pinging. “Yeah, I just need someone waiting on me so I don’t let this drag on. Driving myself would have just—” he shook his head, knowing this sounded half deranged. “I don’t wanna get caught up in there.” 

Vince nodded solemnly. “Sounds heavy.” 

“It’s— complicated.” 

“Do I wanna ask?” 

Eddie had never gotten into it when they had worked together, but that was part of the relief of knowing Vince over that summer. Eddie didn’t have to drag this specific baggage behind him while working at the shop. And despite the fact that Vince was now a factor in his attempt to cast it off, he really didn’t need to know. Not that Eddie had any idea how to even begin explaining it if he’d wanted to. “Not really.”

Vince stuck the sucker back into his mouth, settling it over his molars and letting it bulge out against his cheek. “Alright.” He clapped a thick hand to Eddie’s shoulder, not helping the tension coiled in his spine. “Should I wish you luck?” 

“Yeah,” Eddie answered honestly, trying for a deep breath and finding it a little too shallow. His throat was already dry and he hadn’t even managed to get out of the car yet. “Probably should.”

“Good luck, then. I’ll be out here for ya when you’re through.”

Eddie closed his eyes for a moment, stomach twisting just at the idea of crossing the threshold. The first steps down any new path were always the hardest. He unbuckled slowly, methodically, guiding the seatbelt as it coiled back up over the shoulder of the passenger seat. His stomach was unsettled, had been tight and uncomfortable all day. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure if he would have been able to drive himself if he’d wanted to. His thoughts were spinning, spiraling, hands shaking; he was likely to have turned tail and ran home before he even got there had he been behind the wheel. He gave Vince one last look as he flicked the lock on the door and muscled it open, feeling cold winter air rush into the warm cabin of the Pontiac. “Thank you for this, by the way. I know it’s—”

“It’s no big, Ed. Made my day more interesting, I’ll tell you what.” His smile was honest, easy, warmed Eddie in a way he didn’t care to admit. Encouraging. 

With a final breath and a practiced set to his shoulders, Eddie stepped out into the cold afternoon and let the car door fall shut behind him, hands numb in the pockets of his coat as he dug for his keys. His feet felt like bricks as he climbed up the modest steps to the front door, the little pane of stained glass just barely illuminated from the inside. Eddie knew from years of practice how to slip the key into the lock and open the door smoothly and silently, but his hands shook now, metal clattering against metal and hinges creaking deafeningly as he jerked the door open, willing himself to go inside. And it took some willing, despite the familiar scent of the place and the welcoming warmth that spilled forth from inside through the crack in the door. Pressingly pleasant potpourri and dish soap.

He stepped in. One sneaker fell heavily onto the checkered laminate, the other followed. One, two.

The kitchen was dim, light spilling across the floor in a trapezoid where it bled in from the living room. Eddie took quick stock of the place, finding a few trash bags piled up next to the trash can and recycling bin. The dishes in the sink weren’t quite overflowing, but were not kept up with. Mail had piled up on the kitchen table, which looked as if it hadn’t been used for a meal in quite some time. He had half a thought to clean up a little, to putter around the kitchen mindlessly and help how he could, to do his part here. To distract himself, swallow down the words that needed to be said. Bitter medicine. His instinct was to divert, to cower, to let things slip into an easy sense of normalcy. It twisted sourly in his stomach, and he felt his face twitch.

Old habits died hard, sure, but that was one funeral Eddie had been secretly ready for for much too long. 

A laugh track spilled forth from the living room, the light from the television flickering over the dark furniture forms in the kitchen. He cleared his throat as he shut the kitchen door behind him, shutting out the cold and trapping Eddie in the suddenly pressing heat of the apartment.

Home again. 

His voice sounded dry, small, but altogether too loud in the semi-silence. “Ma?” he called, picking at the sleeves of his coat. He wasn’t planning on taking it off. 

The volume ticked down on the television, Sonia’s chair creaking as she leaned backward to check the doorway. “There you are, sweetheart,” she cooed, television technicolor glinting in the reflection of her thick glasses as she turned. “Don’t be a stranger, come say hello.” 

Eddie’s sneakers were lead on the laminate. It had taken him a week. A week to come up with a semblance of a plan (if he could call it that), a week to work up the courage to so much as set things in motion. There were steps. This was the first one. He’d gone over it in his head as many times as there were seconds in any given day, had finally decided that breaking the news to his mother first would get the hard part over with. 

One of the hard parts.

They were all sort of hard parts. 

One, two. Three, four. So on.

He couldn’t afford to lose his nerve this early on, part of him worried he might if he didn’t get moving now. He could feel the door at his back. Frozen, Eddie drew a careful breath, trying to reconcile with the fact that none of this would be comfortable. Remembered Vince outside idling in the car, pressed himself on the fact that he would start to wonder what was going on if Eddie took too long. He’d orchestrated it this way on purpose: he had to make this quick by design. 

And he had an excuse to leave if it started going sideways.

If Eddie was going to start accepting his rampant nervousness and anxiety, he might as well use it to his advantage. 

“Eddie bear?” 

Stomach churning, Eddie crept into the living room. The lamp beside his mother’s favorite recliner was clicked on, washing the room in a dusty yellow light. The room itself seemed to have grown smaller since the last time he’d been there, the sagging couch now piled with throw pillows and quilts and what seemed to be a few drifting dunes of laundry. 

Eddie had waited to move out until after graduation. He’d had a long list of excuses that were ticked off one by one until he had none left. Had to make sure he had a reliable job first, had to wait until Myra was so fed up living with her own parents and with waiting on him to buck up that she’d gotten her own lease. She’d wanted them to move in together, but Eddie had stalled just long enough for her to abandon that thought for the time being, much to his relief. 

Sonia had done her best to rope him into staying in the end, as was expected. Had guilted him with everything she had, from their mutual fear of abandonment to any number of disaster scenarios, things both she and Eddie knew usually penetrated Eddie’s resolve to the core. Even when he’d finally packed up to leave, he’d moved out with the promise to be close, accessible, to answer the phone, to come home over the weekend when he could. He was allowed to live alone, so long as Sonia’s watchful eye could still look over him. So long as he returned frequently enough under the guise of feeling useful, helping out his lonely aging mother where he could. Where she allowed him to. Terms and conditions.

When Eddie was safe and alone at his own place, he was proud of himself for going. Felt as if he’d finally done something for himself. Being here, though, seeing the place in even slight dishevelment with the laundry and the dishes and the mail, filled him to the brim with a powerful, drowning sense of guilt. 

_ You do her no good when you cave. You do you no good when you cave.  _

Eddie tucked his tail between his legs and took his place off to the side of the television, within view. “Hey, Ma.” It was no strong start, but then again, Eddie had really only rehearsed the important middle bits of this conversation. He’d not quite gotten around to figuring out how to start. 

_ Vince is outside. He probably thinks this is kind of weird. Make it quick.  _

Eddie picked at the threads on the insides of his coat pockets, smoothing them over with his fidgeting thumbs.

“Take your coat off, dear, there’s leftovers in the fridge for you.” He was silent as she scanned him, up, down, toes to hair, seeking out anything deemed different or concerning. She seemed to notice his lack of his usual overnight bag, smiling gently, almost fondly.  _ Silly boy, _ her eyes seemed to say. “I set out pajamas on your bed in case you forgot.”

His nails dug crescents into his palms as his fingers curled inward. The slight prick of pain, the reminder. Growing pains. Hurting just a little to get better. A careful intake of breath before speaking. “I actually can’t stay tonight.” He swallowed, remembering his staged defenses. His rehearsals. “My friend’s outside waiting for me, he just drove me over to stop by for a minute.” 

“He can’t pick you up tomorrow? You don’t work again until Monday—” 

“I can’t stay tonight, Ma.”

The way he blurted it out nearly surprised him, but he wouldn’t let himself flinch.

Her searching eyes seemed to find something distasteful in his expression, something off in his voice. Her thinning lips, crowded with wrinkles at the corners, pressed tight. Eddie watched her. She was unsettled, unused to being challenged like this. Eddie hadn’t, truly, stepped far out of line in a while now. Here and there, sure, little reminders of his independence she’d never seemed to like, tried to wear down and whittle out of him. But lately, things were easier when he ducked his head and agreed. She’d grown used to his compliance again. It made his chest burn. The chair creaked again as she settled fully back into it, one hand fisting the remote a little too tightly. 

“Eddie.” Gentle chiding, a reminder of who was in charge. “You promised.”

Promised to keep in touch. Promised to keep close to her bosom. Promised to remain, as much as was comfortable for  _ her, _ under her thumb. 

It was hard to fight her in every line, but the next came easier than the last. He was warming up. Sweating under his heavy coat. “I’m just stopping by.” 

“You’ve been stopping by a lot less lately, you realize that, don’t you? I’ve realized that.” 

Eddie swallowed down guilt. He’d expected to falter once or twice. She was good at what she did. “I know,” he said, and there was a touch of culpability in his tone he couldn’t help.

“Then why can’t you spare me one night?” 

“I just have to talk—” he hesitated, remembering advice from Beverly. He wasn’t here to discuss anything. There was nothing to discuss. There was no conversation to be had. Just facts to be stated. “To t- to tell you something.” 

Sonia stared. Behind the usual doubt of her heavy looks cast on him, Eddie found something like fear. It scared him a little too, seeing that, watching her tense mouth and wide, heavily lidded eyes, unsure, for the first time in a long time, of what her simple and predictable son was going to say. 

_ She likes having your number, _ Eddie thought, scraping the bottom of the barrel for that wild sense of rebellion that cropped up at precious few points in high school, when he’d first told her about Myra before Myra was truly involved at all. Just to piss her off, to wrench back a rein on his own personal life.  _ The ball is in your court. She doesn’t like that feeling.  _

_ You do.  _

“What’s wrong, honey? Take your coat off and have a seat, we can talk.” There was a threat there rather than a comfort. It wasn’t a kind suggestion. 

His knees felt weak as if he wanted to sit. But he didn’t, he reminded himself. Vince was outside. Wrap it up. Stopping by. Nothing to discuss. 

“Mom,” he started, the room swinging slightly with the realization that, once this was said, it was real. He had to do it. Once this news was broken, there would be no chickening out. Backing out would involve groveling to his mother on all fours, admitting a mistake, having to win back trust he truly didn’t need from her. That he couldn’t do, not when he’d come this painstakingly far just over the past week. Another reason why he’d chosen to take this step first. Make it definitive. Make the next step easier, impossible to put off or avoid.

Bite the goddamn bullet and face the music. 

Eddie’s mind scrabbled for the words to out together a simple sentence he’d been rehearsing for days on end now. All it found was scattershot, the roar of his pulse in his ears drowning out anything sensible. He wanted to close his eyes, wanted to look away from Sonia Kaspbrak in her lonely, cluttered apartment. Lost, if just a little, without him around.  _ You’re my light, _ she used to tell him, when he was small and believed her.  _ You’re my everything. I don’t know what I’d do without you. _ Him and her against a big, scary, cruel sort of world. 

He felt sick with it, sometimes, when he thought too hard about it. Deep down, Eddie understood. She’d suffered loss in a way he’d never comprehended, had watched his father lose a slow and miserable fight with cancer, had watched Eddie himself, truly all she’d had left at that point, sick nearly to death with bronchitis shortly after that. It made sense why she reigned him in. Why she lied. Why she wanted him close. Why it devastated her to the point of lashing out at the thought of him leaving for good. Why Myra was a sort of comfort to her, someone who could take care of him in a way she deemed right and proper and  _ safe—  _ someone who, at the end of the day, understood mother knew best and would return Eddie safely to her in the event of anything going wrong. 

But a reason wasn’t an excuse. A hard truth to learn, but one Eddie was grappling with more and more nowadays. He liked to think he was getting a grip on it here and there, slippery as it was. 

He stood there before her, stiff, wracked with nerves, on the precipice. His hands, tight in his pockets, started to tremble with something akin to anger. It pressed itself upon his brain hot and sudden, but he allowed it to simmer for a moment. Beverly had also mentioned it was important to feel all of it, even if it was unpleasant.

Sonia wanted them to move back in after the wedding. Wanted Eddie and Myra to break their leases prematurely, wanted him and his new wife to cram into his childish bedroom next to hers. Wanted them to save money on rent for a while, wanted to teach Myra the ropes of wife and mother herself in her own territory where her toes would not be stepped on. They could save up to have children, Sonia reasoned, learn to raise them the Mama Kaspbrak Safe and Sound way. It was, at its core, the long term plan for Sonia to keep a constant unblinking eye on her son. It would ensure she never endured another tragic loss. It would add to the cripplingly short list of people she could care for, as if it was all she truly knew how to do. 

Yet it was also at its core her meddling fingers in Eddie’s life, steering things in a way she had been for much too long. 

“Mom,” he tried again, voice gaining a hint of traction. Using the frustration, the fed-uppedness. “I—”  _ can do this _ “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking”  _ and I know how dangerous you think it is when I get to doing that and I fucking resent it  _ “and I need—”  _ something you and Myra just can’t give me— _

“Eddie,” she said, her voice a tender ghost of a whisper. It rang deafeningly in his ears. “You look  _ pale,  _ are you  _ alright?”  _

Something snapped. 

“I’m fucking  _ fine.”  _

He spat it like venom and she recoiled as if it burned through the crepe paper flesh of her face. Her mouth hung open stupidly, and for a split second among all the guilt and understanding and due frustration, for only a moment in something ugly he truly didn’t think he was properly allowed, he hated her. 

Then he felt bad. But that was just natural. He couldn’t rightfully hate the woman who had raised him. 

But he could be mad at her, he could be tired of it. And by fucking god, was he. Eddie swallowed down the feeling bad part and plowed on, shoulders so tense it was starting to ache. “I’m breaking up with Myra. I’m not going to marry her.” The words came free from where they’d been stuck in his throat for days, forcing their way up and out of him and into the room where they mixed like oil and water with his mother’s expectations. 

She looked surprised. And that, that awed (and  _ scared _ , she was _ scared) _ look on her face, was savagely and a little selfishly pleasing. Eddie’s chest swelled despite heaving, breath coming quick and full. He struggled not to grin at it, chest alight with a cocktail of emotions, joints still numb and sore where his hands unclenched in his pockets. Maybe the fallout was worth dropping a bomb. 

Sonia spoke carefully. Eddie always wondered if she thought he was just a little stupid, speaking as if he had no rightful idea what he was saying. “What do you mean, you’re breaking up with Myra?” 

It was an opportunity to backtrack, to back  _ out. _ Eddie wasn’t about to take it. Vince was wasting gas idling outside, inevitably running the heater and the radio, and he was already kind enough to drive Eddie there and back. His mouth twitched. “I think that’s kind of clear, Ma. I’m— I’m—”

“You’re calling off the wedding.” There was an unfamiliar coldness in her voice. 

Eddie couldn’t bring himself to be chilled by it. He nodded, neck still stiff but easing. Damage done.

“I am.”

Eddie’s breathing seemed to fill the room for a moment. He wasn’t hyperventilating. It was rapid and nervous, sure, but not overwhelmed. Not drowning on dry land. Pulling in gulps of air as if to say  _ see, see, nothing wrong with me now, listen to how strong I’ve gotten.  _ Listen _ to me. _

Sonia switched tactics on a dime. Buried her evident anger, knowing the heat would fuel Eddie’s fire. She didn’t want to give him any more kindling, afraid of the spark. “What did she do?” Gentler. Faux concern. Sonia was so ready to accept him, heartbroken and scorned, into her arms, if that was the case. That would be preferable to her, in fact, he marveled. If anything, Eddie getting hurt by some horrible woman in the big cruel world and running home to mother was ideal. 

And that just wasn’t the fucking case. 

“She didn’t  _ do _ anything. She’s— there’s nothing wrong with her, actually, she’s fine. She’s fine too. But I’m not fucking marrying her—”

“Your  _ mouth,  _ Eddie.”  _ Watch it,  _ she said, the facade crumbling very slightly. Her Methodist father would have washed her mouth with soap for language like that, Eddie knew the story. She shook her head, only some of her bafflement genuine. “Then why on  _ Earth _ would you ever consider leaving her, Eddie—” 

Oh, he was so excited suddenly. He could have bounced on the balls of his feet. A smile threatened to split his face, but he tried diligently to hold it down. It was inappropriate, laughter at a funeral, but rising within him nonetheless. “I’m not considering it, I  _ am. _ I am leaving her.” 

“What did you do?” Her tone was more dire now, a low hiss. There was little comfort in it, although Eddie could sense her protectiveness coming around to bite her in the ass. Eddie knew he could do just about anything and she’d forgive him. “Eddie, you’re a sweet boy, I’m sure if you think you’ve done something wrong—”

_ Just about anything. _

Something unexpected struck him in the chest, a fastball to the sternum. 

He  _ had _ done something wrong. 

Eddie had expected a number of uncomfortable feelings to rise to the surface over the course of this particular conversation, but this one came out of left field. It dried up his tongue, tumbleweeds drifting across it as his thoughts faltered and fell into a crevice. 

He had definitely done something wrong. 

It clicked into place with a sudden finality. He’d been using her. Myra was a scapegoat. Myra was for Sonia, Myra was for the world, Myra was for the bullies in high school and the fuckers that still teased Eddie at work, for the stray glances and side comments, for the way he frantically shoved his hands into his pockets when he realized he was gesturing too broadly, too flamboyantly, for what was passable. For her brother calling him a sissy. For pansy. Fairy. Faggot. For having something to prove. For all of it. 

And that just wasn’t fucking fair. A necessary but horrendously ill timed epiphany. Eddie shook his head, mind drawing a blank. He wished he could take his coat off. He felt damp and stale under the weight of it in the suffocating warmth of the apartment. “What?” he spat stupidly, struggling to clamber back on track. 

“Eddie,” Sonia crooned, her voice softening again, finding an in, a stab at his vulnerability. “Honey, it’s normal to get nervous before something big like this. She’s a wonderful girl, you don’t want to give that up.” 

_ “You _ don’t want me to give that up,” he said, miraculously finding footing again. He had to be  _ there,  _ had to be present in this room with his mother, had to be addressing the matter. Not drowning in that shallow cocktail of guilt and shame that was constantly simmering on low just under the surface of his facade.  _ “You _ want me to marry her—”

“Of course, Eddie, I want you to be happy—”

_ Feel it out, _ Bev had advised.  _ Let it go, whatever comes. You owe it to yourself. _

“What if I’m  _ not _ happy? Ma? What if this isn’t making me happy, what if this is f— stressing me out, and I don’t really want this—”

“You just feel that way because—”

“Do  _ not _ try to explain what I’m feeling to me.” Eddie’s voice adopted something he’d never heard from himself, a definiteness that startled him for only a second. He was at an angle now, inclined toward her tensely, hands still resolutely tucked into his coat pockets, keys digging harshly into his right palm. If Eddie had startled himself, Sonia looked nothing sort of  _ floored _ by it, and it urged him on. A little victory that he had to let himself feel too. “You have  _ no _ idea what I’ve been—”

Her voice was cotton soft, still managing to cut him off. “This is so selfish, Eddie.” 

He balked, mouth dropping open. His head could have spun around in a clean circle. _ “Selfish?”  _

“Yes,” she said, deadly sure. Convinced she understood now. She nodded slowly, looking at him half sympathetically, half condescending. “I understand getting nervous about the whole thing here and there, I understand the pre-wedding jitters, but really. Eddie, this isn’t something you back out of because you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared.” He was petrified, just not in the way she was implying. Not about what she was talking about. “I’m  _ not.  _ This isn’t that—” 

“You don’t think I was nervous before I married your father? And, God, was he such a good man.” 

There it was. Eddie promptly shut up. This, too, was an old habit: knowledge of his father was so scarce, so precious, the mere mention of him had his immediate attention. The man he apparently resembled to a T, who he was confronted with every time he looked in a mirror, was still so untouchable. And he craved knowing someone he could never meet again. It threw a wrench into his momentum. He took everything he could get when it took to hearing about Frank Kaspbrak, right now regretfully no exception. His tongue thickened until he couldn’t speak, hanging on her words without meaning to.  
“Of _course_ I was nervous. I was your age too once, Eddie, _everything_ feels unsure. But I knew he loved me, I knew he was going to provide for me,” and here her eyes started to glisten, something genuine mixing with the crocodile tears. If this was a last ditch attempt, it was one that still wounded her regardless. Eddie swallowed thickly, struggling under the sudden weight of it. “It’s okay to question things a little here and there, Eddie, it’s scary, but it’s _wonderful_ in the end. Trust her, and yourself—”

“I—” he needed to recover. He couldn’t be knocked down that easily. “I’m  _ trying _ to trust myself, that’s why I’m—”

“Don’t be cowardly, Eddie.” 

He snapped to attention. Something in his jaw twitched. 

Footing. Find it. One two step. 

“So am I selfish or a coward?”

Her eyes narrowed, rims reddening under her thinning lashes. “Don’t be like this.” 

“No, Ma, go ahead, which one? Am I selfish or a coward? Or a selfish fucking coward?” 

“L—”

Her little stammer couldn’t stop him that time. Eddie needed to steam roll this, needed to get it out immediately before he fizzled. His voice cracked on the first word but he carried on. “Because, you know, I feel like I’ve been a selfish coward a lot lately, I feel like being a selfish coward is what got me into this clusterf—  _ mess, _ and maybe I’m trying to finally  _ fix _ this—”

“What would he think of you now?”

Eddie was at risk of boiling over. The fury was buried so deep, tamped down over the past few years of believing the wrong thing was maybe the right thing, and he shot off without thinking, finally freeing his balled fists from the pockets of his jacket. “What would—”

“Your father, Eddie.”

She was seated, still, staring at him. Hadn’t moved a muscle from her thickly upholstered throne. Perfectly calm and composed in a way she shouldn’t be allowed to be, not when she was running him this ragged. The tears used to get her everything she wanted, but she’d realized that wasn’t working, that that was somehow egging Eddie on. Her hands folded primly, and Eddie watched as she turned her own wedding ring, a small and modest diamond not unlike Myra’s, on her finger. Her eyes never left him, sour puckered mouth pinched tight. Trembling once or twice. 

“What would he have to say about this? About you running away like this?” 

Something inside him was crashing. He could feel the shaky scaffolding holding him up through this whole thing rusting over in an instant, the joints and supports rapidly losing their integrity. She was going straight for the achilles. 

“Eddie?” Voice velvet soft. 

“I don’t know,” he managed, barely audible. It was dry and faint, his chest feeling suddenly tight again. 

Sonia  _ tsked. _ She shook her head as Eddie looked away, his hands flinching finally finding each other, picking frantically at hangnails and struggling for a grip on anything. 

“Oh, sweetheart.” Not daring to look at her, Eddie heard the chair groan as she made to get up, and he could picture her, looking massive again like she did when he was little, knee high, his mother bending down to him with her arms outstretched, her tears fresh and profuse over his skinned knees, scaring him more than was due, waiting to envelop him in the familiar security of her worry. 

A memory came to him in a rush, something out of place. He’d taken a bad spill chasing Bill and Richie outside the Tozier house, cut up his palms catching himself and panicked at the sting and sight of the blood. Mr. Tozier had abandoned his newspaper and dashed off the porch to see if he was alright. 

_ “Hey, tough guy,” _ Eddie remembered him saying, encouraging him to stand right back up like his mother never did, always having tended to him on the ground where he lay.  _ “Ouch, that’s gonna need a little spit and a little dirt rubbed in, huh?” _

Eddie had stared at him, suddenly too baffled to cry about it, wondering why he was making such a small deal over such a devastating wound as road-rashed palms. And to suggest spitting on the cuts?  _ Dirt? _ It was so absurd Eddie nearly laughed. He’d forgotten the pain almost instantly, Mr. Tozier holding his skinny wrists and making sure there was no real damage before helping him to his feet and offering to let him wash up in the kitchen sink like it was nothing.

“I don’t know,” Eddie repeated, ignoring the second crack in his voice as he lifted his gaze back to her, standing before him now, shorter than him, nowhere near the engulfing presence she’d been through his entire childhood and most of his life, “because you never bothered to  _ tell _ me anything about him.”

He heard the worried click of her throat when she swallowed. Her eyes were magnified almost comically behind her glasses, blindness extending far beyond her physical vision, and Eddie squared his shoulders. 

Her voice grew cold, delivering a blow he knew she hoped would finally knock him off his feet and onto his back on the ground where he was used to crying up at her. Send him pelting back, frantic, into her arms. 

“He’d be ashamed of you for this, Eddie.”

There were certain strands in the ropes of Eddie’s patience which had been fraying for some time. And with that, something finally snapped. He took a bold step toward her, frenzy in his voice coming from somewhere he dared not touch for usual fear of it. 

“What  _ right _ do you fucking have!?” he half screamed, jabbing a finger in her direction, yelling at his own  _ mother, _ “You have  _ no _ fucking right to say shit like that to me, not about him, you’re fucking using him to try and strike a fucking nerve and good fucking job, you fucking hit it, Ma! You got me!” 

_ “Eddie—” _

_ “No!  _ No, I have been ignoring what I actually want for  _ years, _ okay, you have no idea how fucking terrifying this is for me to do this and you’re gonna sit there and use my dead fucking dad to try and  _ guilt _ me—”

_ “Guilt _ you?” 

Eddie laughed. He thought he sounded crazy, but he also thought he could stand to worry about being crazy at a later date.  _ “Oh, _ is that not what you’re doing? You’re not trying to guilt me into this like you’ve been trying to guilt me into fucking— everything?” He knew he was going to feel this in the morning, was going to crucify himself for losing it on his mother like this, but the dam had finally broken. She’d been chipping away at it in her desperation. “You have been keeping me from  _ so much _ my whole goddamn life— and you think I wouldn’t notice? You can’t just keep cutting deeper until you hit something that convinces me to stick around here, Ma, I know that used to work, but  _ this—  _ this—” 

Vince was still outside.

Eddie realized with a sudden cold clarity that he simply needed to leave. 

_ “F—”  _

Fuck this. 

He took a brisk step back from her, spine ramrod straight. “I am calling off the wedding. Myra doesn’t deserve someone who’s just in it to keep up appearances. I’m fucking finished playing it safe.” 

Sonia burst into frantic tears the moment he turned for the door. His feet carried him without even thinking, pressing onward, strides long and decisive. Eddie heard her chattering, babbling like a child, resorting one last time to her favorite tactic. The sobbing had worked his whole life like some pathetic siren song, Eddie always caving at the thought of scorning her, of hurting her enough to make her cry until she was hoarse, but he was too starkly aware of the theatrics tonight. 

She was petrified, really,  _ finally, _ and, he thought somewhat coldly, maybe she should be. 

He was going. 

Eddie was just lucky she didn’t actually chase him into the street. Involving Vince was some minor stroke of genius, maybe, but he truly didn’t want to explain the wailing woman in a floral nightgown blubbering after him. When the kitchen door shut behind him, Sonia was muffled, one fist banging into it solidly as Eddie pelted down the steps to the sidewalk and made for the bluegreen Pontiac.

The cold clawed at his face, stinging at first, but came as a fresh relief after the oppressive heat inside. A sharp breath stung his lungs, visible when he released it. 

Music drifted out one cracked window of the car. Vince was smoking, fingers drumming on the steering wheel, and didn’t notice Eddie until he had a hand on the door handle. Distantly, he could hear Sonia wail his name, muffled from behind the door but there nonetheless, but the moment he yanked open the door and slid into the car, the rumble of the engine and the radio finally drowned her out. Eddie dropped his head limply back against the headrest, arms falling uselessly at his sides, tension bleeding from them. Electricity buzzed white hot and uncomfortable beneath his skin, and he found he was trembling. 

“Damn, dude,” Vince said, instinctively offering his half finished cigarette between two slender fingers. “You look keyed up.” 

“I wanna go home,” Eddie said, perhaps too honestly, holding up a hand to politely refuse the smoke. Vince stiffened slightly, getting awkward for, somehow, the first time since picking Eddie up, maybe the first time since Eddie had met him, but didn’t stop to question it. He shifted the car back into drive. Eddie sagged in the seat, pressing hot clammy fingertips to suddenly pounding temples, not daring to look back at the apartment. He closed his eyes and Vince peeled off slowly, cruising down the tree lined street of Eddie’s old neighborhood. He took several shaky breaths to level out, mind reeling, emotion churning in his chest in waves. “Thanks, Vince,” he muttered, almost offhanded, needing to say something. “Can I— get you like a six pack or something for this?” 

“Nah, man, don’t sweat it.” 

_ (When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know) _

Eddie dared open his eyes, looking at him perhaps a tad helplessly. Vince shot him a quick glance, smiling reassuringly once again, cigarette trailing smoke out into the cold January air that whipped past the car through the cracked driver’s side window. It smelled like ash and snow. Eddie sniffed without meaning to, his tone finally softening, vulnerability he didn’t want to show eeking into it. “Are you sure?” 

_ (You’ll know) _

“Yeah, buckaroo.” He reached over to ruffle Eddie’s hair, something weirdly familiar but not entirely unwelcome. “You’re the one who looks like he could use a beer anyway, it’s no problem. You were a good pal and a big help around the shop, it’s the least I could do.”

Eddie tried to keep the next sniffle to himself, but Vince caught him immediately. He felt tender like a sunburn, clothes sticking to and peeling away the upper layers of his skin. He’d desperately wanted to keep from crying until he’d gotten home, ideally until he’d gotten into a slightly too-hot shower so the tears and the sobs would be properly washed away and drowned out respectively, but he was dangerously close to a tipping point. Vince glanced at him out of his periphery, and there was something so strangely understanding and comforting in the look that Eddie couldn’t keep from breaking face. “Jesus, fuck.” A hot tear slipped out from one eye, a second building in the corner of the other until it rolled down his hot face. One, two. “Fuck, I’m sorry—”

“You’re just cryin, you don’t gotta be sorry about that.” 

Eddie had just torn off a bitch of a bandaid; he supposed it was going to smart a little. Some hurts, Eddie had had to learn the hard way, hurt for good reason. Some scars were proof of survival. He swallowed wetly and nodded, embarrassment not gone, but soothed, if slightly. “Thanks.” His voice was a little weak, but he figured maybe he was allowed. He’d had his moment of toughness, maybe a little callous, he wasn’t sure, he’d examine it later, but he was okay. Okay to drop down a few notches. 

He’d done  _ something, _ at the very least. Step one: tell Mom. 

Check. 

Vince turned up the radio and nodded, gently implying that Eddie didn’t have to say shit if he didn’t want to. Gratitude flooded his chest and only made him want to cry harder. A handful of tears slipped out, and Eddie was a little gentler in scrubbing them away, finding himself calmer for it. Vince steered them back toward Eddie’s place, Eddie only piping up once or twice to direct him, starting to feel empty in a good way, clean and rung out and hung up to dry.

“Dad and I just installed the CD player,” Vince offered at one point, and Eddie realized for the first time that he was playing through a disk as the song switched over.

_ (She broke down and let me in _

_ Made me see where I've been) _

“This was one of his favorite records back in the day, he was thrilled that I found a CD of it. Kinda cool, right?” He dug in the center console and provided Eddie with a jewel case, handing it over. Eddie nodded, turning it over in his hands unseeingly. It felt good just to hold onto something solid for a moment. 

“Yeah.” 

There were long breaks between the lyrics for guitar, simple acoustic, plucky and bright. Eddie drew in a little breath, scrubbed again at his face, and settled himself.

_ (You don't know what it means to win _

_ Come down and see me again) _

Eddie turned to look out the passenger window, happier to watch things streak by rather than crawl toward him through the windshield. 

_ (Been down one time _

_ Been down two times _

_ I'm never going back again) _

“You’ll like this next song.” 

“Yeah, I think I’ve heard this album before,” Eddie replied, a little distant. He had a feeling the emotions were going to come in waves. He tried to remember Beverly’s reassurance that he’d level, he just had to feel through it while it lasted. 

“You definitely have, Dad played it at the shop all the time.” He flicked the butt of his cigarette out the window. “You still like it when I drive too fast?” 

Eddie blinked, shifting his gaze toward Vince. He had a wicked smile on his handsome face. “What?” 

“You liked chewing me out for the speed limit and shit, but I know you were having fun when I drove you around.” Vince gave him a split second look, jabbing a finger into his bicep. “What would you say to gearing this baby up a little and getting you home quick?”

A little crackle of electricity sparked up Eddie’s spine. He stared at Vince in mild disbelief for a moment. The smile was familiar on Vince’s face, but Eddie had seen it elsewhere before. Someone else who enjoyed getting him in trouble, someone else who liked it when Eddie scolded him for something manic and stupid he secretly craved. 

Eddie, tears still drying on his cheeks, finally smiled back. 

“As long as you promise not to kill us, Vince, I will fucking pay for your speeding ticket myself if you just fucking floor it right now.”

**20 JANUARY 2000**

**ALBANY, NEW YORK - LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA**

**9:13PM - 6:13PM**

“Stanley Ur—”

“Stanny boy, hey, man.”

“Oh, Richie. Hi. Hey, I should probably—”

“I just wanted t—”

“No, you go.” 

“Right, okay. Yeah, I figured we should touch base.” 

“I think you’re right.” 

“I’m s—”

“I was a huge sch—”

“Christ.”

“I’ll stop interrupting, you go first, Richie, really.” 

“No, no, by all means, what were you gonna say, Stan? A huge schmuck?”

“W— In so many words, maybe. Yes.” 

“Yeah, I wanted to just. Sorta talk about that. Not just that, if we’re going there I was also being a huge schmuck, uh— it’s not too late where you are, is it?” 

“It’s only 9PM, Richie, it’s fine.” 

“Isn’t that your bedtime?” 

“Isn’t this supposed to be an adult conversation? Wherein you refrain from making a joke about me being an eighty-year-old trapped in a twenty-something’s body?” 

“An adult conversation to the best of our combined abilities, yes. Actually. Yeah.” 

“So, not very? Don’t  _ laugh—” _

“No, yeah, okay. I’m not laughing, I just— missed you, dude. Carry on.”

“So, should I apologize first? Because I’m also planning on chewing you out a little here too, would you rather go first?” 

“Eddie talked to me.” 

“Oh. In regards to what?” 

“Why you were—”

“Being a schmuck?” 

“To put it daintily, yes, Stan, a schmuck. He said he stepped on your engagement plans.” 

“Yeah. He did. Yeah, I— I still need to work things out with him about that. We’re working on it. But I did sort of take it out on you. I mean I took it out on everybody, really, but you—” 

“Eternal bachelorhood? Self-absorbed piece of shit?” 

“You were admittedly being— no, okay, I am sorry, Richie. I was pissed off at the whole situation, and while you did deserve to get called out for that crap, I was a little harsh.” 

“A little?” 

“Are you still upset at me?” 

“I’m— I am mostly over it. Even if you did sort of go for the balls there, Stan.” 

“I know. I definitely could have stood to handle that better, and I really am sorry. You don’t have to forgive me right now, or— ever, really—”

“This isn’t a  _ not ever _ situation, Stan, my pride is a little wounded but I did deserve some chewing out.” 

“Okay.” 

“I do forgive you.” 

“Okay, g—”

“But I hope you know next time you’re being a little schmuck I’m taking you out at the knees.” 

“I’d like to see you try.” 

“Man, I really do miss you.”

“Yeah, same to you.” 

“That sounded sincere.” 

“I think this is where you apologize for how  _ you _ behaved.” 

“That was kind of a boner on my part, huh?” 

“You don’t have to phrase it like that, but yeah. I mean— seriously?”

“The sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle around here admittedly may have gotten to me.” 

“Do you have— is—”

“A drug problem?” 

“Yeah. Be honest with me. Not that that excuses it if you do, I just—” 

“No. I should probably stop snorting coke, maybe, but I’m not like. An addict.”

“Uhuh.”

“You can socially snort coke.” 

“I don’t believe you.” 

“I haven’t since.”

“Oh, so you’ve managed to abstain for almost two whole weeks? Good for you, Richie, great.”

“I also hadn’t done it for a good while before then, and it was Bill’s coke. He—”

“I’ve talked to him. I’m talking to you now.” 

“Right. Okay. I’m really sorry I fucked that up. And I am not addicted to coke and I don’t plan on doing coke again for the foreseeable future. Too much trouble. Weed’s fine.” 

“Ugh.” 

“Try it sometime.” 

“No thank you. Have you expressed the same sentiment to Eddie? That you’re sorry in particular for fucking that up for him?” 

“We chatted. Before I left.” 

“Suspicious.” 

“We  _ chatted, _ we did. It was— we’re okay.” 

“I was hoping so.” 

“Are we okay, Stan? You and me?” 

“Do you think I could say no to you, Richie? Honestly? Do you sincerely think I could ever say no, Tozier, I’m finished with you, you giant thorn in my side? Biggest pain in the ass I know? Yeah, we’re okay, we could be better, but I think we’ll be fine. We just don’t have to solve everything in one conversation.” 

“Okay.” 

“You know you’re my best friend, right?”

“Aw, shucks, schmuck, I bet you say that to all the cute boys you know.”

“No, I mean it. You are.” 

“Stan?” 

“Yeah?” 

“To avoid me crying like a fucking child on the phone with you here, allow me to ask: how’s dear Patricia?” 

“She’s everything.” 

“I think you should marry her, Stanley.” 

“I’m going to.” 

“I don’t think you have to wait. I know you were being particular about the timing and everything, but— you’re special to her no matter what, man. It’s going to be her moment because you’re gonna make it that way. You have that effect, dude. Um. Still there?” 

“Yeah. Thanks, Richie.” 

“If it means anything, she has my approval.” 

“I don’t want to inflate your apparently insufferable LA-fueled ego, but it does.” 

“Cool beans. Very cool.” 

“You’re the least cool person I know, Richie. If you ever need me to shrink your gigantic head, you give me a call.” 

“Wouldn’t rather have anyone else forcefully humble me, Stan.” 

“Part of me actually wants to ask you to be my best man, even after that bullshit you pulled. Even after you completely wrecked Eddie’s whole engagement party. It’s a spectacularly bad idea on my end, actually, but here I am.”

“Goddamn, I should start charging people if they want wine thrown on them in public. Might make good money from the sound of it.” 

“Sue me, you have a habit of being there for me. My mom said once you either take your friends with your flaws or you leave them, and you really have continued to grow on me like a rash.” 

“Since third grade, good buddy.” 

“Maybe I should see a doctor about that. Shouldn’t leave things like that untreated.” 

“Now you sound like Eddie.”

“Say hi to him for me, will you? I miss that poor schmuck too.”

“I think were encroaching on the record for most uses of the word  _ schmuck _ in one given conversation.”

“You haven’t seen my mom talk with her brother. We’re not even close.”

“Oy, vey.” 

“Exactly. Anyway.”

“You’re not that far a drive away from him, you can always go say hi.”

“Sometimes you could stand to do as I imply, Richie.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right. Are you ever going to stop seeing right through me?”

“No.” 

“Love the honesty.” 

“You’ve let enough windows close, Richie. Just dive through this one already, okay? Idiot.”

“That idiot sounded like an afterthought, Stan, are you keeping up appearances to make it seem like you don’t love me as much as you undeniably do?” 

“Just a little. Richie?” 

“Yep.” 

“You love him?” 

“Ah, fuck, man. Jesus— stop laughing!” 

“He’s gonna do the right thing, Richie. Do not internalize this and feel like a hero, but honestly, in a way that is completely separate from my own feelings about engagements and relationships our friends may or may not be in, I think he sort of needed that dinner to go horribly.” 

“He— I— yeah, no, he’s not happy.” 

“He’s gonna work it out.” 

“Stan.” 

“Yes, Richie.” 

“I don’t have a sliver of hope, do I?”

“Yeah, Richie. You do. How long have I been trying to tell you that?” 

“I’m not gay. That sounds like a cop out, but I’m not, I really— I mean I’d honestly like him to be an isolated incident, and it is different, it really is, but I—”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Richie.” 

“He kissed me.” 

“I’m  _ sorry?”  _

“It was a while ago, no, no he didn’t— he’s not a cheater, he’s just— confused. I think? We didn’t kiss the other night, I swear we just talked—”

“When the hell did he kiss you?” 

“We were both single!” 

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me! What the  _ hell, _ Richie, are you kidding me?”

“I told you, he’s confused. We’ve always known he has a couple screws loose—”

“You actually actively drive me crazy. I’m about to check myself into a mental hospital, Richie, you sincerely push me to the edge—”

“What?”

_ “Confused?  _ You think Eddie’s just  _ confused?”  _

“How long are you going to harp on it, it’s sensitive.” 

“I hate you, Richie. I hate you.” 

“Can I still be your best man?” 

“Yes! I still hate you! Get your shit together, I thought you were smart, for God’s sake. You truly can’t see what’s staring you in the face, can you?” 

“I’m cripplingly farsighted.”

“Richie?” 

“Still here.” 

“So he kissed you?” 

“Hey, uh, anyway, so when are you actually gonna pop the question, Stanley Manley? That’s much more exciting, in my humble opinion, and I think you should fill me in on that as soon as possible.”

“You— you’re not getting out of this that easy, but— I’m not waiting on Eddie to pull his head out of his ass, I swear. But I think once he does that will socially free me up a little so I can make everything about Patty without a shred of guilt for a couple months. Does that satisfy your curiosity?” 

“That’s fine, I guess.”

“And I’m going to. Make everything about her. It’s going to be absolutely insufferable and if you actually want to be my best man you’re gonna put up with it.” 

“How many times am I allowed to at least fake puke about it because I’ve pretty recently gotten my heart broken and I’m still feeling like a bitter old crone ruined for love even though I’m also happy for you?” 

“Once, but in private. Ew— was that it? If you just gagged on purpose that’s it, you used up your one chance.” 

“At least it’s out of the way.” 

“Right. Well.” 

“Well?” 

“I’m glad you called.”

“I am too. We’re okay?”

“We’re good for now. Do you think maybe we could call a little more often and keep up better?” 

“Man, I’m in such high demand now, I should concern you fuckers about my general well-being way more often if I’m gonna have everyone fighting for my time on the telephone.” 

“Alright, never mind, suit yourself, see you at the wedding and no sooner—”

“No, no, yes, fine, Stan, mother Mary, I’ll call, okay? I swear.” 

“I’ll call too. But I think I actually might go to bed here. Don’t start.” 

“Okay, grandpa.” 

“Okay, schmuck.” 

“Okay, bigger schmuck.” 

“Thank you, I always knew it. Big of you to admit that, Richie.” 

“Oh, zing! Stan! I’m proud.” 

“I’ll keep you posted on engagement stuff. Maybe you could do the same.” 

“On eng— on what?” 

“I dunno, if any of our close friends you’ve been mooning over since middle school maybe  _ kisses _ you again, think about letting me know? Dumbass.” 

“No news is good news, I think.” 

“Go the hell to bed, Richie.” 

“It’s only six thirty where I am. Lighten up.” 

“I said what I said. Call me later, Richie.” 

“I— yeah, I will. Catch you later, alligator.” 

“After a while, crocodile.” 

“L— love you, man.”

“Love you too, Richie.” 

**21 JANUARY 2000**

**NEW YORK CITY**

**5:56PM**

Eddie straightened his collar, phone wedged between his shoulder and his ear. His fingertips felt like they were buzzing. “Hey, Richie?”

The conversation, so far, had been brief. Considerate. Surface level. Eddie had wanted it to be so. It was their second phone call since Richie had gotten back to California. He’d called when he got home safe, which tugged exactly on a few key heartstrings of Eddie’s, but that had been fairly quick as well. Eddie’s chest had swelled unreasonably then, happy to exchange a few tired words with him before Richie headed off for a much needed post-flight nap. That was the end of that. 

He’d then waited all week for Richie to call again, a bright spot of golden expectancy in the tumultuous planning of his escape from his engagement. He’d wanted Richie to be the one reach out first, wanted desperately for the phone to ring, worried several times he’d cave and call Richie instead only to be confronted with the cold company of the answering machine once again, Richie slipping just as easily out of his life a second time—

Then Richie had called a second time. Not great timing, considering Eddie’s plans for the evening, but boy, had he been happy to hear his nerdy little drawl on the other line. 

Eddie had contained his excitement by keeping it brief-considerate-and-surface-level. 

Richie had told Eddie his agent was getting him a writer, Eddie had told Richie he’d seen a friend from the mechanic shop lately. Nothing else was disclosed, yet Eddie felt strangely closer to him just from hearing his voice live on the other line. Eddie had gotten ahold of a cordless phone set with a little charging dock, and it was admittedly nice to be able to pace about his apartment as something to do without getting tangled up in the cord. 

“Yeah, buddy?” came Richie’s voice, a little crackly still from the distance but so welcome and warm in the stillness of Eddie’s studio apartment. 

Buddy. He nibbled on a thumb nail, then almost missing tangling his fingers in the phone cord. “I have to go in a second, I’ve got something to take care of—” He’d made sure to wear an undershirt, sure he was going to sweat through it despite the bitter cold. He checked the little analog clock on the side table beside his couch, nerves spiking at the sight of the time. 

She was expecting him around 6. 

He didn’t have time to be a coward with this. Any of it, not Richie or Myra. He drew a breath and continued, going out on a limb. “—but you should come up soon.”

A beat. Eddie thought it unfair that Richie could get him riled up and anxious remotely without even saying anything at all. 

He seemed to clear his throat. “Me? Come visit you again?” 

Eddie nodded, then hummed, realizing Richie couldn’t see him. “Mhm.” Since when did he forget how to talk on the goddamn phone? 

Richie seemed to consider his response carefully. There was a sort of nervousness hidden behind his voice that Eddie didn’t fail to notice. “You know, Los Angeles is beautiful this time of year. You could get a break from the snow.” 

Eddie straightened up and repeated himself, resolute. He was trying that out, being a little more firm. “Richie, you should come back up here soon.” 

Richie seemed to get the message. Eddie heard a fluttering little sigh on his end, which made his already unsettled stomach squirm in a different way. “Okay, Eds.” The smile was so obvious in his voice Eddie had to actively keep himself from feeling like he was melting. Maybe he was just sweaty. “I think I very well might.”

Eddie lingered on the line for a moment more. Richie didn’t say anything else either. 

He cleared his throat. “I really have to go,” Eddie said, reaching hesitantly for his coat on the hook. 

There was a newness to him, having recovered somewhat from his talk with his mother. If it could be called that. He was riding a certain high, was scared of the crash, but wanted to use it to his advantage right now if he could. One might call it confidence at first glance, though Eddie felt it didn’t really hold up to much scrutiny. 

“You call me next time,” Richie said, and Eddie could feel his own insistence there. 

Eddie nodded again, winced, spoke. “Okay. Sounds fair.” He didn’t mind. As long as Richie picked up. Or called back. Ideally picked up. Jeez.

“Good luck with your um— with your thing.” 

“Yeah.” Eddie was going to give himself a stress headache if he stood around fretting about it rather than going to go actually take care of the thing. It was a big thing, oh, mother of god, but it needed very urgently to be taken care of. He cleared his throat, attempting to confront the nearly equally daunting task of hanging up. “Thanks, Rich. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?” 

“How about I’ll see you soon?” 

Eddie’s pulse sped up several notches, and he stood still as if he could somehow calm it down. He tried not to let that little rush come across in his voice, keeping his words a little clipped. “Works too. Yeah.” 

The grin was obvious again in Richie’s tone. Eddie had been caught. His cheeks flushed with it. “See you soon then, Spaghetti Man,” he said, his voice a little low in a way that still kicked Eddie into high gear. Bastard. 

“See you soon, insufferable pain in my fucking ass.”

He hung up on Richie’s laugh as if it gave him the upper hand somehow. Nerves singing, a smile plastered traitorously on his face.

It fell abruptly with a last glance to the clock. 

Without giving himself room to back out or overthink, Eddie snagged his keys and headed out, slamming the little phone back into its dock. 

The drive felt like a funeral procession for one. Silent, slow. Eddie shook the whole way there, unable to keep himself still. He couldn’t find a word for what he was feeling, try as he might. It was everything and nothing at the same time, hectic and dreadful and icily numb all at once. It would have felt better, he thought, to categorize it somehow, to begin to understand the heaviness settling into the pit of his stomach and gripping at his lungs, but his mind wouldn’t come up with anything remotely akin to it to explain it away. 

Three years. Three years for this. It wasn’t fair to her from the start, but every minute he allowed it to go on only made it worse. He drove the speed limit, no more, no less, trying to promise he wouldn’t let himself waste a minute more of her time on purpose. 

Once parked, Eddie lingered outside her complex for what felt like much too long, car shut off, fingers numb. The heater seemed to have finally given out, but Eddie was so distracted on the drive over that he hadn’t noticed the bitter temperature persisting in the little Civic. His fingers flexed on the wheel, white and red and sore, gaze glazing once again out of the windshield. He was already late; he eventually lost track of how long he waited there alone, throat sore from words he wasn’t sure he’d be able to force out when the time came. 

A stinging sheet of thin rain had cropped up by the time Eddie finally worked up the nerve to dash from the car into her building, sharp and cold on any exposed skin. It really only managed to chill him more than properly soak him. A few cold droplets merely dampened his hair, freeing a few limp strands from the gel. 

Painfully unaware of his intention for the visit, Myra opened the door for him eagerly when he knocked weakly, all pink cheeks and strawberry lip gloss smile.

“Do you wanna come inside?”

Her expression began to sink in the stiff seconds of Eddie’s silence. He only managed to hold her gaze for a moment before he had to look down, finding his stupid scuffed up loafers on the threadbare carpet of the hallway. She was in fuzzy socks, red and green, Christmas socks. Maybe a present from this year. A lump formed immediately in Eddie’s throat, and Myra reached out for him silently, asking what was wrong without words. 

Part of her had to know. Had to have an inkling. She must. 

He met her touch halfway, wrapping a deathly cold hand around her small warm fingers like she could anchor him.

They stood there for a pregnant moment, Eddie quietly working up the courage to meet her eyes again. Green, kind, concerned. His heart broke for her when he managed it, but that he wouldn’t allow himself to feel just yet. 

He owed this to her. 

“I think maybe we should go for a drive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs mentioned:   
> Dreams - Fleetwood Mac  
> Never Going Back Again - Fleetwood Mac  
> (And you guessed it, the next song on Rumors is Don’t Stop)
> 
> I am personally very excited for the next chapter :) is that smiley face a threat? we shall see. thanks for sticking around!!!


	26. THE EVOLUTION OF A VINYL COLLECTION (AMONG OTHER THINGS): PART 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first track on Journey’s Frontiers is Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)

**12 FEBRUARY 2000**

**NEW YORK CITY**

**SATURDAY: 10:46 PM**

When Eddie threw open the door to his apartment, Richie was surprised to find him already dressed for bed in red and green (presumably Christmas themed) flannel sweatpants and an old sweatshirt. More than that, he was surprised by the hug. Richie’s duffel bag hit the floor with a thump, arms going up as Eddie rushed into him. 

Time didn’t quite stop, but it hesitated. Richie froze up, hands uselessly held in the air. He blinked, glancing down to find Eddie’s dark mop of hair wedged just below his chin, his skinny chest rising and falling a little quickly against his own. It was nothing more than a flutter through all the fabric, making Richie wish he’d lost the coat in the elevator. 

The moment hung for a second too long. Richie felt Eddie tense up, maybe noticing Richie’s big stupid arms still frozen in mid air, and Richie half-frantically gave him a couple quick pats on the back to try and indicate some form of reciprocation.

“Easy, tiger, don’t knock me off my feet the second I land.”

His voice sounded scratchy and noncommittal even to himself, constitution weakened from the way Eddie’s warmth melted off the outer layer of chill that had been plaguing him since he stepped out of the cab.

“You smell like airport,” Eddie said pointedly, stepping back a hair too quickly, nose wrinkled. Richie had to stuff his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching out for him. He wanted the hug back as soon as he didn’t have it within reach anymore.

He got his first proper look at Eddie once they had a breath of space between them. He looked tired. More than just from the late hour, Eddie looked bone tired. They’d been talking more, sure, but the conversation still felt intentionally light. Richie hoped there wasn’t something Eddie was avoiding on the phone, hoped things on his end were going alright. 

He figured he had a couple days to get a better read, if anything. He swallowed a lump in his throat, tearing his eyes away from the ghost of dark circles below his dark lower lashes. 

Richie could feel the quick trace of Eddie’s eyes up and down him, taking the same second to drink him in as well. Suddenly self conscious, Richie drew his elbows in close to his sides and rocked back on his heels. He hoped the cold excused the color in his face. After a beat too long, Eddie released him from his gaze and bent down to pick up Richie’s bag for him. Something about it was almost a little bashful, aversive, his eyes down. Cheeks pink. 

Richie was close to giving himself a stress headache and he hadn’t been in the door a full minute.

“How was your flight?” Eddie asked pleasantly enough, turning away finally to toss Richie’s bag on the couch for him. 

He almost missed Eddie’s eyes on him, then immediately felt a little pathetic for it and squared his shoulders, shrugging that off. There was a tremble in his fingers as he pulled off his hat and started working at the zipper on his coat. “Still not used to being a mile in the air, but not bad. Crossing time zones that fast is a little fucked up though, right?”

Eddie was looking at him again when he glanced up, finally shedding his coat. His eyes looked wide and dark in the warm dim glow of the apartment, shadowed under his thick eyebrows which pinched slightly in the middle. Richie swallowed and Eddie glanced away again, busying himself quickly with adjusting a stack of coasters on the coffee table. 

“Yeah, I guess so. Are you tired?”

“Not too bad.” Richie risked a smile, wringing his hat in his hands. Knit with a stupid little puffball on top. Present from Grandma, who seemed to not quite understand the differences in climate between Maine and California. Glad he had it with him now, though. Eddie returned to take his coat and hat. He hung them up on a peg next to the door next to his own. Richie’s ribs seemed to squeeze around his heart. “Feeling oddly refreshed, actually,” he admitted.

Eddie’s nose twitched again, as if hiding a smile. He smoothed his hands down the back of Richie’s coat then placed them resolutely on his hips, turning to face Richie once again. “That’s just the weather,” he said, casualness a little forced. “It’s brisk.” 

Richie had promised himself he’d be careful with this. He’d set ground rules for himself on the plane. But with Eddie standing right in front of him, barefoot and looking a little skittish, almost excited under that layer of tired, he had to quickly accept this fact that being careful was going to be much easier said than done. 

“Sure, Eddie,” he said, taking a slow breath and feeling his shoulders start to relax. “It’s the weather.”

“At least you brought a damn coat this time.” Eddie plucked the sleeve of Richie’s sweater as he passed him, making a quick bee line for the kitchen. “You want anything to drink?” 

Richie let his teeth sink into his bottom lip, adjusting the sleeve on his shoulder. Just that little gesture of familiarity was enough to make him fidget. He needed a grip, not a drink. “I’ll take any leftover eggnog if you have it, Chris Kringle.” 

Eddie shot him a half annoyed look. “What?” 

“Cute pants.”

Richie felt a strange little wave of joy crest over him when Eddie rolled his eyes, tipping his head back to groan. “You don’t waste any fucking time in getting on my nerves, do you?” 

He rocked up onto the balls of his feet, biting his lip to hold back his grin. It felt too wide, too obvious. “Never.” 

Something clicked back into place with them. Delicate, still, but still there. This was easy. They could do this. Richie wasn’t sure what _this_ was, but they could. 

Eddie waved a hand flippantly. “Why don’t you go change and I’ll make fun of your stupid pajamas, huh? It’s late, I’ve been up all day.” 

He looked it. Despite the restless buzz to all his movements, Eddie looked a little off balance. Richie hesitated to call it _sleepy,_ but in the soft PJ’s— 

He had to clear his throat loudly, interrupting his own thought. “Can I lean out a window and take a couple drags before you march me off to bed? Apparently smoking is frowned upon on planes, I’ve been itching since I left LA.”

Eddie hummed, giving him one more once over. Richie felt like he was going to jump out of his skin every time he did that, half a second from telling him to lay off on the wandering glances. Richie watched him gnaw on the inside of his cheek, one dimple sinking in deep. He felt a dull buzz down to his toes, chest tightening. 

_Remember your reasons and your excuses, Tozier._

Eddie puffed out an exasperated little sigh. “Sure,” he said after a stiff moment of consideration. Richie watched the _you should really quit that bad habit_ argument dying in the forefront of Eddie’s thoughts, sure it would do no good. Never did. He jerked a thumb toward the kitchen. “There’s a fire escape, let me put shoes on.” 

Richie didn’t have a balcony back home so much as a rickety back staircase. He only ever went around back to feed Ziggy or smoke when he didn’t feel like doing so inside, but if he had a proper little space like this, he’d be out there all the fucking time. 

Eddie’s fire escape was a small landing, but it somehow felt private despite the staircases connecting it to his upper and lower neighbors. A few floors down, someone had strung rainbow Christmas lights around the L shaped railing of their own, a grill and a folding chair on another to their left. The view wasn’t spectacular by any means, but the street sprawled out below the metal grate under their sneakers, the skyline rising high above the dark shadow of the building across the street. A siren rose and fell in the background, urban white noise like in the movies. Neither of them had bothered to put on coats, standing hesitantly near each other on the little platform under Eddie’s kitchen window. Richie flicked his lighter to soothe himself, still feeling wound up from just the rush of seeing him again in person. His nerves had been running at a high 9 since he’d gotten out of bed this morning. 

He hesitated to think they could make a habit of this, of Richie flying up to see him, maybe of Eddie coming out to LA here and there, but it was a pleasant thought nonetheless. One Richie tucked away carefully, trying to let his overactive mind draw a peaceful blank to the click and sizzle of his lighter. 

He pulled in a few drags silently, hip resting against the corner of the railing, careful to blow the smoke away from Eddie. 

In a space where so much could be said, there was something oddly comfortable about saying nothing. 

Eddie had his arms crossed over the railing, legs angled back as he leaned down to place his chin on his forearms, nose already red from the chill outside. Richie could see his breath when he sighed, gaze cast out into the open space between his building and the next, unfocused. The planes of his jaw caught orange in the tiny fighting glow of Richie’s lighter. He’d always been classic movie handsome, tonight no exception. It was nice, even for a brief moment, after the years of separation and the unfortunate circumstances of their last meeting, to watch him in silence for a breath of a moment. Something in Richie’s chest seized up when Eddie suddenly turned his face to rest his cheek in the crook of his elbow and met his eyes, a sepia photograph suddenly come to life. 

Richie looked away as if caught, chiding himself for it. The weight of Eddie’s gaze settled onto him again, somehow overtaking the pressing cold of the night. He stuck the cigarette between his teeth and hunkered down a little to get closer to Eddie’s level, more cautious in looking at him this time. Conscious corrections to his expression. “This isn’t such a bad little spot out here.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed, eyes focusing and locking in on him in a way that made Richie want to pace. “I don’t come out here that often, but it’s kinda nice.” 

They looked at each other like that for a moment more, the impossibility of being once again in the same space starting to settle in as reality, before Eddie looked away again out into the night. Richie plucked his cigarette from his mouth and released a cloud of smoke over his shoulder, watching it drift and tumble in in the chilly breeze that swept it away. He wondered idly if Eddie would mind if he inched a little closer. Just to share warmth, not close enough to bug him with the smoke. Richie could feel his fingers and toes numbing, hands a little clumsy from it. 

Another silence stretched between them. It was odd; Richie had figured they would have entirely too much to talk about once Richie arrived, especially considering how quick and easy they’d been keeping the phone calls. Several different openers ran though Richie’s mind like a banner behind a plane on the beach, nothing catching, everything seeming either too sudden or too serious to bring up right then. He wanted badly to just enjoy the scene, but his thoughts were on a jog, leaving him unable to properly settle. He let his eyes glaze over slightly, the cityscape blurring into fuzzy little blocks of greys and blacks and oranges.

“I did it,” came Eddie’s voice from somewhere seemingly far away. Out of the ether of the night, a little sudden. 

Richie straightened back up when he found Eddie propped up onto his hands, fingers red where he gripped the icy metal of the railing. Still looking dead ahead. Richie wet his lips, lowering his cigarette and tucking his lighter away in the pocket of his jeans. He found he was almost frightened to ask, but asked away. “Did what?” 

“I talked to Myra.” 

Something swooped in Richie’s stomach. So they were doing this now. Here was one of those avoided conversations. He gulped, hoping the sound wasn’t obvious. “Oh.” 

“Oh?”

Richie nodded, ignoring the discomfort in his gut. “You talked to her?” 

“Yeah.” He didn’t sound timid. Just quiet about it. “You know, in regards to us getting married.”

Richie swallowed too much smoke on his next drag. His hands were trembling now, though the temperature outside suddenly had less to do with it. He found it within himself to doubt, to nearly stumble into panic, thoughts of the worst case scenario surfacing readily in his mind. 

“And how we shouldn’t. Get married,” Eddie clarified.

Then came the relief. Richie was worried he was going to give himself emotional whiplash. Wouldn’t be the first time. “Oh.” 

Eddie shot him a narrow glance. “Oh? All you have is _oh?”_

Richie gestured aimlessly with his cigarette. “Yeah, _oh,_ come on. I’m stuck between a _congratulations_ and an _I’m sorry,_ I don’t know which one to go with, so _oh_ is sort of a happy medium.”

With a groan, Eddie folded his arms again and bent over to press his forehead into them, rocking back and forth on his feet. 

Richie’s throat felt dry. He was a little sick of the shallow conversations they’d had lately, sure, but now that he was here talking about this, Richie missed the ease of them. He didn’t want to finish his cigarette. He ashed it over the edge of the fire escape, genuinely scrambling for something to say. 

Eddie wasn’t getting married. Eddie did it. He did it and he wasn’t getting married. Richie had to repeat it multiple times in his head to allow it to actually sink in, to let the few harsh weeks of speculation and pointedly not asking fade into the past. The Myra Thing, it seemed, The Myra Thing that had honestly been keeping Richie up on and off for years since the phone call where he was first made aware of it, was over. 

Over for Eddie, too. And Eddie, huddled in his sweatshirt and hunched in on himself, still didn’t look great. The euphoric idea of him having gotten himself out of that situation (of Eddie, being, for all intents and purposes, single again) butted heads uncomfortably with Richie’s sudden onset concern. He wanted madly to place a reassuring hand on his back. His palm would fit there, right between the angled planes of his shoulder blades. He could ease the tension there with his fingers, work out the knots at the base of his neck. Richie swallowed, hands remaining forcibly idle. “You doing okay?” he asked weakly, hoping, somehow his voice was soothing. Not that Richie really thought of his nasally drawl as soothing. 

Eddie nodded, a little awkward given his position, and stood back up straight with a heavy breath. Releasing something out into the night air. “I’m— yeah. I’ve been better, I think, but I’m okay.” He nodded again, sticking his cold chapped hands into the pockets of his dumb sweats. His throat bobbed when he swallowed. 

Okay. They could work with okay. “That’s good.” Richie was sort of glad Eddie was still looking off, pensive. He felt his face doing something, but was unsure of what expression it was exactly. Worried Eddie might read him wrong. Unsure of how he was _supposed_ to read him right now when he wasn’t doing a great job of reading himself. He toyed with his lighter in his pocket to keep his free hand occupied. 

“Yeah. It is.” Eddie extracted his hands to rub them together, cupping them and breathing into his palms to warm them. His breath trembled slightly, seemingly steeling himself. “I also talked to my mom.” 

Richie tensed.

“Sort of.” 

So Eddie had been waiting to talk to him in person. A cold drop of dread plunked into Richie’s stomach, but he kept his voice even as possible. It came out a smidge too high. “Oh really?” 

Eddie’s glare was halfhearted, more defensive than anything. His shoulders folded in slightly as he lowered his still cupped hands, tone growing edgy. “Why the fuck do you sound surprised.” 

It couldn’t go wrong this early on. Richie tried to recover. “She’s not your favorite conversation partner is all.” 

An eye roll. Richie’s stomach curdled.

“That— how did that go? Was it just about the engagement, or—?” 

“Or lack thereof, yeah.” Eddie said quickly. He didn’t look exactly happy to be recounting this either. At least they were both uncomfortable. “S-Sorta. It uh— it was okay. Fine.” Eddie swallowed, his voice wavering slightly afterward. “It was hard, but it’s over. For now.”

There were reasons that Richie should reach out to him. There were reasons he shouldn’t. Richie remained so still it almost hurt. “For now?” 

Eddie paused for a moment too long. Just long enough for Richie to nearly drop his lighter and touch his arm, just there, just to prove he was really there in case Eddie was doubting it, in case he pulled back. 

“She’s been calling a lot.” 

A muscle in Richie’s jaw twitched of its own volition. He swallowed down a pulse of anger in the back of his throat, hot and sudden. Forgetting the cigarette completely, he turned toward Eddie and leaned back against the corner of the railing, opening himself up to him. Eddie glanced to him out of the corner of his eye, then let his gaze fall downward. He shifted, unsettled, and Richie fought hard to remain still. “So she’s been—”

Eddie shook his head, putting up a hand to stop Richie in his tracks. Words started pouring from him. “I feel— fuck. I don’t know if I should, but I feel really guilty, Richie. I think I was really harsh, looking back on it. I don’t know if I should go apologize or— I mean she was _brutal,_ she brought up my _dad,_ for fucks sake, just to throw me off balance—”

Richie was glad Eddie either didn’t notice or overlooked the harsh huff of Richie’s breath at that.

“but—”

“I think you should never speak to her again.” He surprised himself a little with it, the words flying out of his mouth before his thoughts had fully processed them. But once he’d said it, Richie found he’d meant it.

Eddie looked at him quizzically, blinking. Richie squared his shoulders and lifted his eyebrows, slightly challenging, and Eddie wet his lips. “What the fuck, Richie? That’s a little much—”

“No it’s not.”

“Richie, she’s my _mom._ Even if I’d rather eat a fucking tire whole than talk to her right now, I’m going to have to eventually.”

Richie hadn’t expected to have this conversation tonight. Here, now. But here it was. It was too important to glaze over, and after all the time they’d wasted lately between the last time Richie had stayed at a very different apartment and now, Richie could stand to be outright with it. “I don’t exactly hate to say it, Eds, but your mom sucks. She’s always sucked. And your life seems to suck a lot less when she’s not around sucking all the life out of you.” He sniffed, flicking his cigarette butt over the railing and pressing his mouth into a hard line. Part of him wanted to go on, but he needed to give Eddie a second to let that much sink in. 

Eddie stared at him for a moment, tense and coiled. The gears in his head were clicking, his eyes searching Richie’s face. Then he grinned. The little bastard smiled for the first time since Richie had arrived.

February in New York was suddenly a few significant degrees warmer. At least where Richie was standing. “What?” 

Against all odds, Eddie breathed out as if he was about to laugh. “You just used the word _suck_ like five times in reference to my mother and not one was a blowjob joke.”

That wide, traitor smile finally split Richie’s face. He crossed his arms, leaning forward into Eddies space. “How quickly I forget myself. By all means, allow me—”

Then Eddie laughed. Then impossible sunshine broke through the midnight overcast over the city. Eddie reached out and pushed at Richie’s forehead to fend him off, that one crooked canine of his and his devastating little dimples on full display. _“Nope,_ no, stop, I was about to be proud of you for fucks sake, don’t take that away from me—” 

Richie threw his hands up in defense, leaning back and away again. “Hey, hey, I’m only human, don’t expect me to change overnight.” 

Eddie’s expression sobered up slightly as the laughter wound down. The gleam in his eyes softened, smile turning more contemplative before he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth to nibble on it. He crossed his arms, mirroring Richie, facing him more fully. Examining him again. “You have changed.” 

Richie’s stomach dropped. He took in a steadying little breath, looking Eddie over this time. “So have you,” he said, voice a little quieter. A little more tired, having settled, now. Present here, finally grounded several stories up. 

Eddie’s edges smoothed a little in turn. He shifted slightly on his feet. “Really?” 

Richie nodded. “Not in a bad way. Not from what I can see.” 

Eddie had said it best. He did it. Richie was going to need a night’s sleep and maybe a brisk walk to fully come to terms with the gravity of it, of Eddie having come back from something that seemed nearly life ruining, but for now he was brimming with blind pride. Blind affection. Eddie Kaspbrak, his mind thought uselessly, just his name. Eddie Kasbprak. Look at him. His stupid smile slid once again across his face. He remained still. “I’m glad I’m here, Eddie.” 

The eye roll was a valiant attempt to brush it off, but Richie caught the renewed warmth in Eddie’s face. It took everything in him not to reach out and cup his face, to feel the heat rising under the cold that pressed in around them. “I’m glad too, but don’t get too sappy on me. I’ll get sick.”

“Oh, fuck off.” When Richie did reach out, it was to flick Eddie’s arm. Something non-offensive and familiar, something that didn’t cross any boundaries. Like the little tug on Richie’s sleeve earlier. A small gesture of the fathomless sentiment of _I’m here, I’m still me, we’re different but we’re still us._ Eddie flicked back, his wicked little grin making a reappearance. That was all he needed to say. Just his smile. 

Richie chewed at his lips, fingers tapping on his arms when he resettled. Eddie calmed down a degree as well, picking at the cuffs of his sleeves. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Richie asked, figuring he should. 

“What?” 

Richie shrugged, doing his damndest to be nonchalant about it. “Your mom? And the breakup and shit?” 

The way Eddie sighed yanked harshly at Richie’s heartstrings. Again, his eyes scanned him, and Richie felt heat creep into his numb ears. He was precious, standing there, ridiculously precious in just his PJs and sneakers, and Richie was rough in reminding himself of his reasons. Of things he couldn’t and shouldn’t do.

“No, I can think of a million other things I wanna talk about with you, that’s last on my list. Dead last.” 

Richie’s stomach flipped, mind reminding the rest of his body not to get too expectant. Not to over examine. They were just talking, they talked all the time. “What’s first, then?” he asked, trying desperately not to prepare himself for any kind of exciting answer. 

“Sleep,” Eddie admitted, glancing up through his eyelashes. He did look wiped, suddenly, as if merely bringing it up had finally tired him out. Like he’d dropped the attempt to look alert and okay, that bone tired showing it’s true colors unabashed on his face. 

“That’s not much of a conversation,” Richie said, trying to hide what felt like desperation to hang onto this moment. Bitter cold as it was. Warm with him just this close, arm’s length. He wanted to press it, wanted to ask what Eddie actually wanted to talk about, see how much deeper they could dig just on the first night. How much time and space they could recover right here on the fire escape. 

Eddie rolled his eyes one last time, then turned decisively back toward the window. “That’s the point, fucker, do you ever get tired?” 

And the chance was gone. Oh well. Richie scoffed. “Oh, so you were looking for a cute way to tell me to shut my trap, maybe nothing has changed.” 

Eddie hitched a foot up onto the empty milk crate under the window, looking up and over his shoulder at Richie as he got a grip on the windowsill. Wind carded through his hair, displacing it from its usual tidiness. “Maybe not,” he said with a smile that threatened to kill Richie dead. He clambered through the window and disappeared into the apartment, leaving Richie with that and his cigarettes and his excuses on the fire escape. 

Richie wrestled himself out of his sweater (which may have been Went’s at some point, it was a little short in the sleeves on him) and changed into a thin t shirt and old blue sweatpants in Eddie’s impossibly cramped bathroom, emerging once he’d brushed his teeth to find Eddie settled into his couch, Richie’s duffel tucked neatly under a side table. Slipping his hands into his pockets, Richie did a visual sweep of the apartment. It was truly just a living room and a kitchen, the bathroom to his back. Something missing. He blinked, sucking his teeth. “So— i just sort of noticed.” 

“What.” Eddie nibbled on a thumb nail, eyes resolutely trained on Richie’s face. 

“Is this the only room?” 

Eddie tipped his head slightly to the side, incredulous. “Yeah, it’s— it’s a studio, that’s the point. I mean the bathroom has a door but—” 

Richie lifted his arms and dropped them. There was a problem here. “Then where the hell is your bed, Eddie?”

Eddie swept an arm.“You’re looking at it.” 

Richie was not looking at much. His eyebrows sank down as he glanced around again. Side table (duffel bag), coffee table, the TV dinner stand and the TV, a saggy looking little arm chair, a couch. A couch? Richie blinked, crossing his arms. “You sleep on a _couch?”_

He shot him a look, oddly defensive. “It’s a pull-out, Richie.” 

Richie couldn’t keep himself from snorting, the joke spewing out automatically. “Damn, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard ‘pull out, Richie’, it’s usually quite the opposite—“

Eddie’s groan rose from deep within his chest. “Remind me why the _fuck_ I let you set foot in my home?” 

“Again. This is the second time now, you invited me in _again.”_

Eddie threw his hands up, mock exasperated, his grin betraying him. “Again!”

Richie was going to really have to put himself through the wringer on this _being careful_ bullshit. He just hoped he could fucking pull it off. It was only a couple days. 

Eddie figured he would have noticed just how small the futon was the few times Myra had spent the night and shared it with him, but it only truly struck him when he saw Richie in direct comparison to the thing. While Eddie moved the coffee table and pulled out the mattress himself every night, Richie apparently felt the need to help, which resulted in more instructions and time to get the job done than was strictly necessary. But it seemed to satisfy Richie well enough. He stood over the bed with his hands on his hips, seemingly sizing it up, while Eddie dragged out a spare pillow. 

Eddie couldn’t believe how off his spatial reasoning had been before this. He’d been forced to consider the logistics of this situation many a time since (and even prior to) inviting Richie to stay, knowing full well there was nowhere else for him to sleep lest he invest in a sleeping bag for one of them, but he still felt a little shy about it now that they were down to it. Now that Richie stood there looking much bigger in person than he did in Eddie’s mind, now that Eddie could see how much Richie was going to take up of the bed and how much it was going to invade the space Eddie usually occupied himself. 

Eddie was a little embarrassed to admit just how much he’d been thinking about this since they’d planned it. He was angry with himself for bringing up Myra so soon, hoping to god it didn’t somehow sound desperate. 

_Hey, Richie, by the way, that fiancée I had? No longer a problem. That virginity of mine? Still intact. Just in case you were wondering, my good pal Richie, my good straight buddy Richie who’s emotionally dealing with his own shit and his own breakup which is actually meaningful and not something born out of a stupid attempt made a long time ago to offset the fact that I’m strictly fucking dickly, which, by the way, Rich—_

The springs in the mattress squeaked obnoxiously when Richie shrugged and took a seat. Eddie winced, ears hot. Startled out of his thoughts, he tossed the pillow at Richie’s back automatically, making him yelp, and bustled off to turn off the lights in the apartment. Considering the impossibly lacking square footage, the task took much less time than he would have liked. 

“Now I know you’re a little guy and all,” Richie started, forcing yet another eye roll out of Eddie, “but you really sleep in this thing every night?” 

His lip twitched. “Quit bellyaching.” 

“I’m not, I’m just baffled.” 

Eddie returned to the living room, a hand on the switch of his reading lamp, as Richie laid back on the mattress. He took up a definite more than half of the damn thing, flat on his back with his arms around his offered pillow. He blinked up at Eddie from behind his glasses and Eddie quickly flicked the light off, rounding the back of the couch to the other side of the bed. He paused there, thinking objectively how the best way to approach getting into bed here might look. It was dim now in the apartment; his eyes took a second to adjust, but he could still make out the major forms in the room. Namely Richie. “I had to make some necessary compromises to get a place I could afford in this neighborhood.”

“Like a proper bed?” 

“This _is_ a proper bed,” Eddie said, spreading his hands. Richie kicked the covers down as Eddie stood there, hesitating, on the other side. Eddie could just make him out in the dim glow from the windows, lights that never completely went out pressing through his curtains in little amber patches around the room. His heart was stuttering. “It’s just a small apartment, it calls for some improvised furniture.” 

Eddie took advantage of the moment Richie chose to pull off his glasses to finally drop down to the mattress, hearing him chuckle as he placed them on the side table. “Improvised furniture, he says.” 

It was going to take him a second to lay down, thoughts churning. 

_Hey Bev, I’m gay_ was one thing. Difficult, but dealt with by now. At least expressed verbally to one person he trusted. He didn’t have to fully come to terms with it overnight. Eddie, however, hadn’t quite yet made it to the conversation of _Hey Bev, have you ever looked at Richie and thought he was actually kind of stunning in this weird specifically dorky Richie way, and maybe you looked at him and thought that when your face was really close to his and you were cleaning up his gnarly head wounds while he bled all over you but you didn’t really care because his mouth looked sort of pretty in a way no one else’s has ever looked to you so you decided to fuck it and kiss him because your brain is the size of a ping pong ball and then you got into a relationship when it immediately became clear he wasn’t into you like that even though until then you didn’t really realize you were into_ him _like that but now that you’re out of that stupid relationship you’ve since realized was nothing more than a straight cover and have the time and space to think about it you might maybe sort of maybe have a crush on him?_ just yet. Still grappling with it himself, if he was honest. And crush wasn’t the right word. Eddie couldn’t stand to fall into the stereotype of the poor gay (god, it still felt alien refering to himself like that) sap with a _crush_ on his best friend. He’d just found himself admiring him here and there and had kissed him once. Big deal. Eddie found he also admired Dr. Malcolm in Jurassic Park from time to time but he didn’t have _feelings_ for Jeff Goldblum. 

Eddie remembered to respond when Richie wheezed again. “Something funny?” he bit back.

“Yeah, you. Everything you do,” Richie said in a way that made Eddie’s heart do cartwheels. “You had that little thinking face on, I can tell even in the dark.” 

Eddie consciously wrinkled his nose, disgusted, but more so with himself than at Richie’s comment. Richie settled back down onto his back, shoulders drawing close to himself when he looked up to find Eddie still perched stiffly next to him. It took him an extra second to finally lie down, resigning himself to the fact that he was going to be huddled against the right side of the bed all night to give Richie enough room. He tugged the blankets up over the both of them, already hyper aware of Richie’s body heat so close to him, intensified under the covers. “Don’t mock me.”

“I’m not, you’re just funny. Between us, you should have been the comedian.” 

Eddie truly needed him to stop. He needed a second to think clearly before he went to bed so he could mentally reset this already dangerous path of thinking for the rest of Richie’s visit. “Are you going to talk all night?” he hissed. 

Several seconds of silence passed between them. Eddie blinked, squinting through the dimness to find Richie staring at the ceiling, pillow now beneath his head. Richie turned toward him, Eddie’s brow wrinkling. “I didn’t mean you have to shut the fuck up right _now,”_ Eddie said, feeling a little guilty. 

Richie just snorted, not seeming truly hurt. “No, I get it. We’re still catching up on talking to each other but this is just too much of a good thing at once, huh?”

He nibbled on his lip. “No,” Eddie answered honestly, easier in the dark. He adjusted his pillow and debated turning onto his side. They were both flat and stiff on their backs beside each other like a couple in neighboring graves, just as still. Afraid to move. “But we should go to sleep.” 

He heard Richie swallow. “Okay.” 

As if that was going to happen anytime soon. Eddie felt wired, buzzing as if he’d drank strong coffee late at night to finish balancing his checkbook, unable to sleep when he was finally finished. God, when had his life gotten so fucking bland? He sighed, hearing Richie do the same, his eyes falling shut.

“Night, Rich.” 

“Night.” 

In the heavy still and quiet that quickly descended over them, they were both thinking it. It was the loudest thing in the room, the few inches of negative space crammed between the heaviest. Last time in Eddie’s bed. Last time in Eddie’s hotel room. Last time _that_ would ever happen, Eddie thought somewhat bitterly. 

Richie smelled the same as he did that night in that little twin bed, minus the wine on his breath, smelled like his same cheap shampoo and soap, the warm familiar scent of his skin underneath it. Eddie forced himself to take a deep breath which had nothing to do with taking in the way Richie smelled, adjusting his legs and accidentally brushing Richie’s ankle with his foot. They both tensed up, Eddie hissing an apology and inching away slightly as Richie did the same. Eddie winced again when he heard Richie swallow then clear his throat, as if that helped ease the tension. 

Eddie usually slept on his side. From what Eddie remembered, Richie did too, sometimes more on his stomach than anything. They were both uncomfortable as it was, but it was necessary. Precautions. If they didn’t start out touching, they wouldn’t end up touching. Eddie prayed that, at the very least, the awkwardness swarming them like unwelcome flies would subside over the next couple of nights, but he wasn’t sure how either of them were going to get any shut eye like this. They couldn’t get close, couldn’t risk actively conjuring up the memory of November at Eddie’s old place. Eddie shifted onto a shoulder blade and a hip, deciding it would be better, if more crowded with all the limbs going on, to face Richie if he had to. Just a subtle change in his weight, noncommittal, waiting to see if Richie countered the adjustment at all. 

He didn’t. He yawned, in fact, and Eddie couldn’t help but yawn too, a tingle running up and down his spine. 

“What time do you usually wake up?” came Richie’s voice. It was deep, groggy, not half as alert as Eddie had expected it to be. Eddie didn’t let any thoughts about how that made him feel linger.

Since he hadn’t really reacted to the experimental shift, Eddie quietly turned onto his side, instantly more comfortable. He took quick stock of his limbs, making sure nothing was crossing into the unspoken territory of Richie’s Side of the Mattress, before responding, quiet. “It’s uh— Sunday. I usually sleep in a little. But I could be talked into getting up if you have some kind of plan.” 

“Oh, you don’t rise at the crack of dawn like a little anti-vampire?” 

“No, asshole.” The mattress creaked again as Eddie settled. Richie swallowed again. Eddie wished he would stop doing that. 

Richie yawned, deep and content. Eddie yawned. That was alright. He hummed almost involuntarily, heard Richie breathe out soft and slow. Eddie sort of wished he would keep talking. His voice was caramel right now, gravelly in a way that soothed Eddie to the bone. He’d examine that later. After Richie left. 

“Okay, we’ll sleep in. I’m very down to sleep in.” Richie’s voice was sleepover soft. 

Eddie’s face colored again. He was grateful for the near darkness, humming again in agreement. 

_We’ll sleep in_ — that made it feel like this was familiar for them, as if they were accustomed to getting up together. To going to bed together. 

He wasn’t allowed to make a habit out of it, but he could enjoy it in part for the next couple days, he figured. No more than that. “Yeah,” he muttered mindlessly, his face pressed half into his pillow, which smelled like his own detergent and hair gel. Richie’s weight was a tangible presence though Eddie was consciously not touching him, the mattress dipping slightly in the no-man’s-land between them. An invitation neither of them could take. Richie sighed, weighty and full and somehow almost sweet, his mouth smacking once as he adjusted and finally settled in. Eddie’s pulse was steady, his brain over-conscious of it. He’d known, in some way, that this was some kind of dangerous. Inviting him in at all, sharing a bed again, being this close to him. 

Lately, Eddie was trying to be more okay with a little dangerous. 

Even if that wasn’t the intention for this visit. 

He’d figured he wasn’t going to be able to sleep a wink with Richie this close, but he could stand to be tired this week. It would be worth the time spent with him, finally. The catching up. He considered, if only for a brief moment, that when Richie left, one of Eddie’s pillows would smell like him. 

Then he woke up 

**SUNDAY: 12:46PM**

alone. Groggy and unsure at first, but alone.

Eddie, his arm extended fully, hand laying softly where Richie should have been, found he had nothing to hold on to. He blinked the crust out of his eyes, lifting his head. No visual on Tozier. 

“Richie?”

Eddie whipped his head around, propping up on an elbow. It didn’t exactly take long to scan the apartment. The curtains on the corner window didn’t do much to diffuse the unforgiving morning (afternoon? Christ, it was nearly 1PM) light streaming across the hardwood, Richie’s absence all the more glaring in the stark light. Eddie leaned back on his hands to glance into the kitchen, swiveled his head to find the bathroom door ajar, dark inside. No sign. His stomach tightened up, a quick frantic pang of worry bolting through him.

But lo and behold, there was Richie’s duffel bag. Spilling over the sides and kicked under the coffee table, but still there. Eddie tried to scold himself for worrying that Richie had skipped town, but part of him couldn’t help it.

He was more accustomed to Richie saying he was leaving than coming back.

Eddie flopped onto his back and scrubbed his hands down his face, figuring the slippery little bastard had just gone out for a smoke. He was, admittedly, disappointed and trying very hard not to be. If he was honest with himself, a major part of Eddie’s guilty wayward fantasies of this weekend had included Richie drooling on his pillow next to him on this gauzy Sunday morning. An image that appeared readily in his mind, but one he tried not to put too much thought into. Scrutiny of those kinds of things tended to ruin them. He tended to try and just enjoy them for what they were worth while the daydream lasted. 

But no, it wasn’t a crush, don’t be silly. 

Looking back on it, Eddie figured he should have gotten his bachelors in denial. 

Hands over his eyes to block out the light, Eddie nearly fell victim to another muzzy half-dream of similar standing when the door banged open and nearly scared the living daylights out of him. He shot back up, yanking the covers up to his chest and whipping around to find Richie in his doorway, looking a little too much like he belonged there with a grocery bag in one hand, hair sticking up with static where it snuck out under his hat. 

“It lives,” Richie said, sideways smile making Eddie’s pulse hitch a little too quickly. Woke him up well enough. “You were dead to rights this morning, I was worried I was gonna have to call the morgue if you were still down when I got back.” 

“Fuck off,” Eddie spat creatively, making a valiant effort to smooth down his hair with his fingers as Richie shut the door behind him. “Where the fuck did you go?” 

“Miss me?” 

Eddie eyed the grocery bag when Richie set it on the kitchen counter, eyes narrow. Richie peeled out of his coat and hat, hanging them on the peg, and leaned back against the counter on his hands. “I’m more suspicious than anything,” Eddie said. 

“Have you grown out of your old health obsessions or are you just broke?” 

Taken aback, Eddie blinked. “That’s an extremely rude fucking question, Rich, thanks.” He threw back the covers, wanting to seem more awake than he was as he got to his feet and stretched. 

“You just look like you’re living off ramen.” 

Eddie self consciously glanced down at himself then back up at Richie, who quickly corrected himself. 

“Not _you,_ you look fine,” he said, a touch too quickly. “Your kitchen.” He gestured broadly as if that made things obvious. 

Eddie rubbed the heel of his hand into one eye, looking vaguely at Richie. “What?”

Richie held up a finger and turned to start unloading his grocery bag. Curious, Eddie padded over, standing just close enough to see what he’d gotten ahold of. Richie pulled out a carton of eggs, a couple apples, a pear— a whole assortment of other fruits and vegetables left in the bag, soon lined up next to the others on the counter. 

Groceries.

“You went out and got me groceries?” He wet his lips, finding his mouth a little dry. “Where the fuck did you get this shit?” 

Richie didn’t meet Eddie’s gaze immediately. Eddie raised his eyebrows insistently, watching Richie pause, then finally glance up to him. His eyes were bright, his dark tshirt and the gold light in the kitchen bringing out the blue. “I couldn’t sleep in because apparently you can’t be bothered to buy curtains that actually block out any light. Went for a walk, stumbled across a little bodega.” He nudged the box of eggs closer to a befuddled Eddie. “Those are fresh, I saw the hens myself. I mean I didn’t see them actually lay the eggs, they’re not _that_ fresh, but—”

Eddie held up a hand to quiet him, shaking his head slightly. “You didn’t have to—” 

Richie flapped his hands around to cut Eddie off. “This is just what you get for sleeping in and leaving me to my own devices. Your fridge is stocked with apple juice and TV dinners, for fucks sake.” 

His chest felt like it was going to burst. Eddie snagged the bag and balled it up just for something for his hands to do, suddenly fidgety. He stuffed it under the sink and popped back up to look Richie over. “I get _groceries?”_

Richie shrugged. His hair stood up a little funny on one side with static, it was still long. He desperately needed a trim. “Yeah, and breakfast if you want it.” It was all Eddie could do to stare. Richie looked him over, a grin bursting onto his face. “Dude, you still look like you’re half asleep, earth to Kaspbrak.” 

He felt like he was still dreaming. Eddie very nearly pinched himself, staring at Richie and the produce in a state of mild disbelief, a series of stupid questions flittering uselessly though his brain. He shook himself out of it forcefully, elbowing Richie out of the way of the range as his heart clattered around behind his ribs, more thrilled about this than he was. “I can make eggs, move.”

Eddie, honestly, didn’t seem like he knew exactly what to do with Richie once he was there. After a plate of the driest and most lovely scrambled eggs Richie had ever had the pleasure of eating, they were left sitting blankly across from each other at Eddie’s kitchen table, which was really just a slab of wood that folded out from the wall with a collapsable pair of legs. Richie understood to a point: if Eddie were to show up to LA, even announce and planned for, Richie would have no clue where to even _begin._

Richie almost felt sore from how still he’d held himself all night. It had taken much too long for him to finally fall asleep, stolen glances to Eddie’s sweet slack face making something light up in his brain and keep him dangling precariously between the decision to stay strictly to his side of the mattress and the urge to turn onto his side and see exactly where he could fit himself against Eddie. Reluctance was for the best. It finally boiled over into too much when he’d blinked awake and Eddie was still there next to him, mouth hanging slightly open, curled up on himself, hands relaxed, a twitch in one of his fingers, and Richie had made the executive decision then to bolt out of bed before he could be tempted to swipe the slightly damp strands of hair, a little gingery in the morning light, from Eddie’s slack brow. 

Once they were out of the apartment, Eddie seemed to have grown a little skittish again, keeping things surface level. Richie wasn’t completely sure what to make of it, hoping he hadn’t overstepped in going out to grab food that morning. He had gone out with the intention just to smoke, then had come the brilliantly domestic idea of cooking breakfast. 

Something he used to do at Sandy’s place, he thought with a twinge, barbed wire in his throat. She was a nightmare in the kitchen, Richie had a few tricks up his sleeve, and he loved nothing more than coaxing her out of bed to the smell of cooking bacon. He liked bringing her fresh oranges and other little things he knew she liked, placing them in the bowl on her tiny kitchen table, in return receiving one of her little dropped beach or sidewalk treasures, a quiet exchange that had once been so goddamn comforting and now stung like a wasp just thinking about it.

Sandy was on the exact opposite side of the country, Richie was finally getting alone time with Eddie, and yet she kept popping up everywhere. A girl with a gap between her teeth in front of them in line at the cafe Eddie stopped by at sometimes before work. A too-loud laugh heard as they crossed the street. Someone roller skating backwards in the park, clumsy with it. Her favorite trick; she was a pro.

It wasn’t quite guilt. Richie sure as hell didn’t feel too good about it, about allowing Sandy to continue popping up in his mind when he’d been working so hard to keep her down, but he couldn’t help the surges of nostalgia.

Eddie did a pretty good job of pulling him out of it even without intending to. He was a little tyrant on the sidewalks, dragging Richie out of the way, hauling him across the street like he was playing human frogger, straightening his hat every time it threatened to slip backwards off his frankly unruly hair. His nervous energy kept Richie grounded as well, although in a less welcome way. He kept shooting glances over his shoulder, avoiding certain routes as he toured Richie fairly aimlessly around, the landmarks he pointed out increasingly frivolous. 

“An Italian guy yelled at me over there the other day,” he said, gesturing to a random street corner. 

Richie took a sip from his coffee, tongue darting out to clean the foam that clung to his upper lip. “And what were you doing to make the Italian guy yell at you?”

This riled him up exactly as much as Richie intended. Eddie’s shoulders squared, expression souring. “I was just standing there, I didn’t do shit, Richie, he just went off.” 

“How did you know he was Italian?” 

He scowled as if it were obvious. “He was yelling at me _in Italian.”_ Eddie then sank into what seemed to be deep thought, his brow creasing. Richie had a sudden irritating urge to reach out and smooth it out with his thumb, maybe a little too enticed by the red cheeks and nose from the cold. It made what winter freckles were left stand out on Eddie’s face. It drove Richie a little more than crazy. “I think he actually might have thought I was also Italian. That happens more than you’d think.”

“Are you Italian?”

“No, my dad was Polish.” 

“And your mom?” 

“I dunno, American? Pretty damn sure she’s not Italian.” 

And so on. 

At some point or another, Richie realized Eddie was looking out for Myra.

The thought sank heavily into the pit of his stomach, but he couldn’t blame him. It explained why the hell he was so ferrety, why he kept making nervous passing glances down the block before leading Richie down them, why the makeshift tour root was so convoluted. 

They stopped for pizza eventually, a relief after parading in weird little zigzags around town, and Richie couldn’t help but remember the hangover meal shared at Eddie’s the first time he’d come up to see him at school. He had half a mind to steal his soda again to get a rise out of him, wondering if Eddie would take the bait and start throwing ice at him again. Brought a dumb little smile to his face, directed down at his slice on his paper plate. 

Eddie coaxed him into talking about LA a little here and there over lunch, about how his gigs were going. He’d picked up another spot at a different club, one with a slightly younger audience. He’d been turning down writers left and right, trying to hold off as long as possible, but he had the sneaking suspicion that Steve had a point: he was getting stale. 

Not that he expressed that much to Eddie. He didn’t _feel_ stale with Eddie nearly snorting Coca Cola out of his nose trying not to laugh at him while they ate. Like at the McDonalds near his campus, where Richie had offered, more serious about it than he cared to say, to run off with him. 

So much for that. 

After denying Richie a tour of the auto shop he used to work at 

(“That’s where I worked that one summer.” 

“Where, down there? With the blond guy outside?” 

“Yeah, no, yeah, let’s— cmon, it’s boring.”)

Eddie started leading them back toward his apartment, giving Richie a last couple little glimpses into his new life there. And it felt new. Despite Eddie’s edginess and nervous glances around the corner of every building, despite still looking exhausted just under the surface, Eddie looked better. It had broken his heart at the dinner a month back, seeing just how frantic and glaringly unhappy Eddie had been. 

For now, he seemed fine. Fine was a significant upgrade from where he’d been. Fine was all good and well, as long as fine included a few passing grins at something stupid Richie said, a few elbows to the ribs, a few instances of ears growing red from something other than the cold. 

Richie was beyond pleased to settle back inside to warm up when they finally made their way back to the apartment. Once the bed was converted back into a proper couch and the cushions were settled (as requested by Eddie, Richie wouldn’t have minded hanging around in bed mode), they sat down for a movie, both of them having a hard time paying attention. Too much to say, too happy to be there once the chill had crept out of their ears and fingers. 

Richie found himself snooping around under Eddie’s watchful eye while the television droned on in the background, ignored. He stumbled upon Eddie’s trusty old record player on top of a dresser, the milk crate not far from it. 

_“Two_ milk crates,” Richie said, overjoyed to find that Eddie’s measly little collection had grown out of the first box Richie had first seen in his college apartment. “Start buying your own stuff finally, Kaspbrak?” 

“Yeah, I— yeah.” 

Richie crouched down, eagerly flipping through. “Jesus, Eds, this has shaped the fuck up. Blue Oyster Cult, Duran Duran, Whitney Huston, Bee Gees, Ramones, my old friend Marvin, Wham!— interesting range, but I’m into it.” Dropping one knee down to steady himself, Richie extracted a Bowie record, beaming as he turned half around, holding it up to himself. “Eddie, you just got like ten times cooler for owning this on vinyl.” 

Eddie looked skeptical. “Don’t you also own that on vinyl?” 

“Yeah, but I was already established as cool for my music taste.” 

“You liked Buddy Holly as a kid just because he wore glasses like you.” 

“And that’s a perfectly good reason. Don’t shit on Buddy,” he said, replacing the record and standing up to see what Eddie had on deck. He very nearly gasped. “This is not _Frontiers._ No fucking way.” 

“I—” 

Eddie was wringing his hands when Richie glanced back over his shoulder, beet red. Richie laughed, lifting the dust cover. “Why the fuck do you look so embarassed? This is such a good fucking album, I’m almost proud of you. This isn’t even the one with Don’t Stop Believin’ on it, come on.” 

“I like that song too,” Eddie said, bordering on defensive. 

“Yeah, Eddie, everybody does, that’s why I’m pleasantly surprised you own an entirely different Journey record. And listen to it, apparently. Look at this, flipped to the B side and everything.” Richie repositioned the needle and lifted the record to flip it, glancing back at Eddie. “Can we pop this baby on? I’ll make dinner, how’s that sound?” 

Eddie’s flush hadn’t subsided. Richie wondered if it was too hot in the apartment for him. He’d always run warm. “What the hell are you gonna make us for dinner, cup ramen?” 

“You don’t have cup ramen, I checked. I just bought you shit, I can whip something up. You have dry pasta, right?” 

Eddie looked skeptical. He crossed his arms over his chest, foot tapping once, and with the pink cheeks Richie had to mentally curb himself from observing how goddamn adorable he looked in the slightly too-big sweatshirt he’d pulled on once they got back to the apartment. It only hurt a little bit. “What are you gonna make?” 

Richie dropped the record cleanly onto the deck and switched it on, watching it rotate a couple times before dropping the needle onto the edge. “I’m making you Maggie Tozier’s special spaghetti for growing boys. I swear to god, this is the most useful thing she taught me before I went to college. Not that I really ever made it in college, but now that I’ve got produce in season pretty much all year and an actual kitchen, it’s a staple.” There were only a couple seconds of scratchy near silence before the heavy synth line dropped in, and Richie let his head drop back. “Holy _fuck,_ I forgot how good this song was.” 

Eddie still looked wary, scratching distractedly at the back of his neck as Richie plowed through to the kitchen. “We can just order takeout, you don’t have to cook for me.” 

“Eddie, I want to, come on. We just had pizza, since when do you eat like shit?” 

“Since when do _you_ turn down takeout?”

Richie bobbed his head when the drums came in. That, miraculously, broke a somewhat timid smile onto Eddie’s face. Richie wasn’t sure why he seemed so dodgy, but he cared more about warming him up. He didn’t mind the blush, though. “Mama raised me right. Where do you keep your pans?” 

“I have spaghetti sauce, we can just heat it up—” 

“No, I’m gonna make it nice. Sauce it up, if you will.” He made it to the fridge, still bobbing to the beat, and pulled out some of the vegetables he’d bought earlier. “Pans?” 

“Next to the one under the sink.” 

Richie retrieved a frying pan and a pot, digging around until he found a seemingly untouched cutting board. The cutlery drawer was easy to find, if a little sad: only one spoon, a couple forks, two butter knives, a steak knife, a wooden spoon, one singular three-fourths measuring cup. Richie could make do. He pulled out the steak knife and the spoon and got to work, dicing up a small handful of onion. It felt good, honestly, feeling competent at something in front of Eddie. “Butter or olive oil?”

“What?” 

“Either one, do you have it? And where’s your spices?” 

“Sp— hold on.” Eddie, who had been lingering at the fringes, crossed into the kitchen and started poking around. It took him a moment of flipping through cabinets (once going up on his toes to check a high shelf, which made Richie’s heart feel a little faint), but he came out of it with a small, nearly full bottle of olive oil and salt and pepper shakers. “Anything else?” 

Just salt and pepper. Richie wrinkled his nose fondly, but set to work. He poured some oil into the pan and switched on the burner, throwing his head forward on the downbeat of the chorus. 

Eddie laughed at that. A small one, but one that passed as a laugh, even if it sounded a little startled. That was a victory enough in Richie’s book. Eddie stood closeby, supervising, as Richie fried up the onions and a couple cloves of garlic, checking Eddie’s hip just lightly as he bounced back and forth between the balls of his feet.

“Do you want a hat or something? Your hair’s gotten fucking out of hand, I don’t want it in my food.”

“I’m cooking for you, no complaining. This is special treatment.” He checked him with his hip again and Eddie took a step away, finding something apparently more interesting to look at in the room. “C’mon, You do the pasta, do you have spaghetti noodles?”

“Um, I have shells?”

“Close enough.” 

Richie switched the pot and the frying pan so Eddie could reach. Eddie turned away, reaching into another cabinet and pulling out a big bowl, then a generic brand of pasta, and headed to the sink, filling the bowl with water. Richie watched, bemused, then a little befuddled as Eddie opened the pasta box, holding it over the bowl of water as if about to pour the dry pasta in.

“What the fuck are you doing?” 

Eddie looked up at him, characteristically overly-defensive. “Pasta?” he said, giving Richie a look like he was the village idiot. “Like you asked?” 

Richie glanced at the bowl, then the empty pot, and the box in Eddie’s hand. He put two and two together. “You are not about to make pasta in the fucking microwave. Do not tell me you make your pasta in the _microwave—”_

“I’m just gonna nuke it, it’s faster—”

Richie threw out a hand to stop him when Eddie went to pour the pasta in again, making him balk. This time Richie laughed, trying to wrestle the box out of Eddie’s hands. 

“You’re a psychopath! Holy shit! No, put it in the fucking _pot,_ I got a pot out for it and everything. I think I see why you were in such a fucking rush to get married, Jesus, you do need a wife to look after you, don’t you?”

“Hey!” Eddie barked, balking at both the stolen pasta and the comment. “Don’t be a fucking prick to me, you’re in my apartment—”

“Yeah, making you dinner—” 

“Which you offered on your own volition!” 

Richie tipped his head back and groaned, putting the spoon down in favor of picking up the bowl to dump the water in the pot, where it belonged. “How you haven’t accidentally killed yourself living on your own, buddy, I truly can’t say.” He switched on a second burner, handing Eddie the bowl back and moving back toward the cutting board. “Can you hand me the mushrooms?” 

“Ew.” 

_“Ew?”_ Richie couldn’t help but laugh again, shaking his head at Eddie. “Don’t be a toddler.” 

“Mushrooms are a fungus.” 

Richie reached around him, crowding him against the counter for a moment, to reach the mushrooms he’d set out on Eddie’s side of the counter. “A delicious fungus, and they’re going in the sauce.” He set to chopping them up, making a valiant effort at keeping his eyes on the task at hand. Once finished, he inched the mushrooms to the side and went for the zucchini, making the mistake of glancing up at Eddie, who was, eyes on the still pot of water, mouthing along to the lyrics of the song. 

Something familiar settled back in. Something Richie had lived with for so long, he sometimes neglected to notice it. 

He couldn’t help but grin, warmth welling up in his chest, when he felt a sharp little sting at the tip of his finger. Wincing, Richie immediately brought his hand to his mouth, tasting iron and salt. 

Eddie didn’t seem to notice, thank god. The onions were going to burn if he got distracted with first aid. Richie merely wiped his finger off on his jeans and silently tossed the soiled zucchini slice into the sink, continuing a little more carefully. 

As the song and the comfortable silence stretched on, Eddie seemed to ease up, his shoulders shifting a little, hands pressed to the counter in front of the range. Watching the pot to make sure it would boil, apparently. “This is taking forever,” he commented at one point, to which Richie rolled his eyes. 

“Microwave pasta psychopath.” 

Eddie got curious once Richie was done chopping vegetables, scooping them off the cutting board and dropping them into the oil, enjoying the sizzle. The smell filled the tiny apartment immediately, hitting Richie with a sudden wave of nostalgia for home. Garlic and oil and pepper, slow roasting tomatoes. His mom had cooked something similar to this all the time, sneaking in vegetables where Richie wouldn’t notice them until he grew up enough to appreciate it. He could feel Eddie lingering over his shoulder, watching intently, and had to do his best not to glance back and meet his gaze.

It was already a lot, cooking in his little kitchen with him. Being here alone with him. Richie had been worried about overwhelming himself on the plane ride over, concerned that those old feelings, things he’d been carrying with him for so long, would get the dust blown off of them the moment he walked in the door. Worried further about it when Eddie had mentioned ending things with Myra, which scraped off only a thin layer of guilt. A mere film on top. But it was coming on slowly, bit by bit. Warming up slowly, like a frozen hypothermia victim. Can’t shock the system. It wasn’t fair, somehow, how Sandy could still exist in a corner of his heart, how Eddie could budge his way back in, if he’d ever left. Richie thought he was doing an okay job getting over Sandy, taking his time, but it still felt oddly unfair to not be totally over it and still somehow marveling at Eddie out of the corner of his eye, doing little things to impress him, daring to be here at his place alone like he was allowed the time with him. 

The next track switched on, something much sweeter, and Richie felt his face warm over the pan of vegetables. He asked Eddie to grab the sauce, hoping to distract himself, and added that in once things looked sautéed nicely enough. The quiet was nice. They’d been chatting aimlessly throughout the day, they could both stand a break. Richie didn’t often feel free of the need to fill space with talking, but with the album playing in the background and Eddie’s occasional humming as he cautiously added the pasta to the water, filling the apartment with another welcome scent, he felt like he could lay off a little. When he was on around Eddie, he was _on,_ but that came with the opposite as well. He could switch off too, without half as much anxiety of being seen as he usually felt.

They cooked like that for a while, in near silence, Richie making do with what he bought and what Eddie had, wishing he had a few other embellishments. He did want to impress, despite himself. Eddie padded over to the record player to skip the third song, one he didn’t really like, as Richie found a couple bowls and drained the pasta. Eddie didn’t have a colander. He just dumped the water and fended the pasta back with a fork. He nearly burned himself watching Eddie fondly over his shoulder, gingerly moving the needle around until he hit the opening of the fourth track. 

Despite his lack of other staples, Eddie did have a block of parmesan cheese and a grater, and Richie took great pleasure in setting out their respective bowls and silverware and grating cheese on top of them like a garnish at a nice restaurant as Eddie sat down.

It was a little pathetically sweet, suddenly, sitting down across from him with his own bowl of spaghetti. Richie could picture the little wine glasses. A candle. Perhaps an Italian man singing in the background. It was a very upscale restaurant in Richie’s imagination, one that could afford live music. It sent a pang through his throat, eyes down as he tossed his pasta in the sauce. “This would be very Lady and the Tramp of us if we had actual noodles.” 

“Glad you’re finally admitting you’re a tramp.”

Richie risked looking up, finding, to his relief, that Eddie was also invested in his bowl. He seemed to be picking the mushrooms out and scraping them off on the edge of his bowl, face twisted in concentration. Richie needed to see a doctor when he got home. Something had to be wrong with how quickly his brain flooded with affection looking at this little prick being picky. “Anything for my lady,” he said, receiving a halfhearted middle finger in affectionate response.

The harmonies in the song in the background were getting to him. Richie was oddly affected by it, wondering when this album had gotten so goddamn sappy. Sappy in that dripping dramatic 80’s way, fitting, oddly, for something Eddie would own and listen to. He wondered idly when the last time he’d actually listened to this record was, given that it was already set up. It was a nice image, Eddie in this apartment, in his place, singing along softly in his private little way, tone deaf as he was, sweeping or cooking or sorting his laundry. Stupid simple things Richie felt weird to admit he sort of craved to witness him doing. He hesitated to think it domestic, the two of them now, sitting across from each other eating something they made, for all intents and purposes, together. 

“Have you seen your parents lately?” Eddie asked, taking a hesitant first bite sans mushroom. 

“Yeah, I was home for Christmas. They’re doing good. Had to see my grandparents though. Grandpa O’Malley was none too pleased at my current career choice, but. C’est la vie.”

“He’s the one who’s kind of a dick, right?”

“Yeah.” 

Eddie shrugged as if it was the easiest thing in the world. Richie watched the collar of his sweatshirt slip down his shoulder then back up, fascinated by the white sliver of undershirt revealed beneath, looking away when Eddie looked back up. “Who gives a shit, then. Your parents took it well, right?” 

Richie swallowed a slightly too-big bite. “Yeah, well enough. They’re happier now that I’m actually sort of getting somewhere, but. Yeah.” 

“Then who cares.” Eddie finally took another bite, seeming pleased, and Richie felt genuinely relieved. “And define getting somewhere, what the fuck does that mean? You were kind of vague earlier.” 

Richie waved a hand dismissively. “I’m performing more, I guess? Agent’s kind of up my ass, but it’s for good reason. It’s fine. Nothing super exciting.” 

Eddie nodded, now paying rapt attention. Richie felt a little examined under his gaze. He cleared his throat, opening his mouth to say more when the track switched again. “Oh, shit.” He grinned, the steady little piano riff familiar in a wonderfully fuzzy kind of way. “Fuck, I forgot this song was on this album.” 

“Faithfully?” 

“Yeah.” 

Eddie had found something interesting in his bowl to look at again. Presumably a rogue mushroom. Richie, nibbled on his lip as the lyrics came in, knowing the words by heart from a long time ago, from his kitchen in Derry. “My dad thinks this is the most romantic goddamn song on earth,” he said, shaking his head lightly, unable to tamp down the little grin. It was a fond memory; he couldn’t hear this song without thinking of his dad doing his best to serenade his mother in the kitchen, swaying behind her as she cooked. 

Eddie nearly snickered, gesturing with his fork. “Journey? Your dad thinks _Journey_ wrote the most romantic song on earth?” 

“I mean if you listen to the lyrics, it’s a strong contender. I would have guessed something by like—America, or something, for him, but he’s got a point with Faithfully.” 

Eddie didn’t know the lyrics by heart, but he did pause to listen, making the tragic mistake of watching Richie mouth along to them as the verse wound up to the chorus once again. 

_Two strangers learn to fall in love again_

_I get the joy of rediscovering you_

_Oh, girl, you stand by me_

_I'm forever yours—_

_“Faithfully,”_ Richie crooned under his breath, eyes closed with mock passion. His voice sounded much too low, reaching a little for the note, but it brought a wavering smile to Eddie’s face that he couldn’t help. 

He made several attempts to hold down the grin, Richie having not noticed yet, but was caught. Something in Richie’s eyes lit up. Eddie scoffed, brushing it off. “Is that your actual singing voice? Really?” 

“No, that’s my Steve Perry, you into it?” 

His face hurt from trying to hide girins all night. “Doesn’t quite do it for me, sorry, pal.” He had to choke down a snicker when Richie pouted, eyes going wide and sad, mouth drooping comically. “Better luck next time.” Eddie took a big bite of pasta to shut himself up, trying not to let his eyes roll. It was good, it had no right to be this good, mushrooms aside. Much better than throwing room temperature sauce from the jar onto his, yes, microwaved pasta. 

“Look at this cannibal,” Richie said under his breath, stealing Eddie’s attention again. 

He was already dangerously close to laughing already, pressing his lips together slightly. “What?” he asked, trying his best to sound spiteful. 

Richie gestured at Eddie’s bowl and then Eddie with his fork, his own mouth twitching. “Spaghetti.” 

They both snickered. The song swelled under the sound of their laughter at the table, coming to a dramatic build up toward the end. Eddie flipped Richie off again, hiding his grin in the cook of his elbow. 

“That was fucking atrocious, get out of here.”

Richie only laughed louder, his fork dropping with a clatter. 

Eddie leaned over the table, shoulders shaking. “You’re not _funny!”_

“You cracking up has me believing otherwise,” Richie said, trying to gather himself. He flicked a hand toward himself. “Cmon, giggles, keep telling me how unfunny I am, I’d like to see you try.” 

Eddie prepared himself to do just that when he caught a little flash of red at the tip of Richie’s pointer finger. His stomach dropped. “Are you bleeding?” He reached out to snatch Richie’s hand before he could yank it away, finding a fresh cut. “Richie, how the fuck do you cut yourself and not notice? And you say I’m the one who needs someone to look after them, what the fuck?” 

“Eddie—”

“C’mon, get up.” 

“Oh my god, can I finish my damn meal? I worked hard on this.” 

“Bathroom, Richie.” 

With a groan, knowing he should have expected it, Richie obliged. Their spaghetti, half finished, was left abandoned on the kitchen table, the record contiuining to spin. 

The rest of the night went easily, smoothly. Richie couldn’t rightfully bring himself to mind the doting over his sliced finger in the bathroom, which, honestly, wasn’t that bad. But having Eddie bustle about for gauze and tape and A&D was bearable in his book. 

They were still circling each other maddeningly like two big cats pacing a shared cage. Neither of them daring to get too close, terrified to so much as toe a line. 

Richie sang obnoxiously to the rest of the album while Eddie patched him up, thinking if he was loud enough it would cover up just how close they had to stand in the tiny bathroom that hardly fit a sink, toilet, and shower, let alone two nervy grown men. 

They did the dishes together, side by side, with a few conservative inches between their shoulders, Eddie washing, Richie drying. Eddie insisted he do so so as not to get his stupid bandaged finger wet. 

They shared the sink and mirror as they brushed their teeth, Richie insisting his father would be proud of them for it, Eddie elbowing him lightly, but that was all. 

They moved the coffee table and pulled out the futon again after Richie insisted that it would be more comfortable to watch a movie in bed. Eddie agreed, and they propped up their pillows against the couch back/headboard. Eddie microwaved popcorn. Richie tried (and failed) several times to toss up a kernel and catch it in his mouth, but Eddie grinned manically at him (under a less than vindictive warning not to lose food in his bed) and made it worth the butter smeared on his cheeks. They watched a movie like nervous middle schoolers, leaving an appropriate amount of space between them, not daring to touch, though on more than one occasion Richie might have left his hand just within reach. Richie had, in fact, _been_ that nervous middle schooler. Countless times in the Aladdin in Derry, always finding an excuse to be the one sitting next to Eddie. Dragging his friends to the horror flicks for the chance that Eddie, despite his brave face, would jump and grab Richie’s arm. More often than not, he did jump, but the only thing Richie got out of it was Eddie’s popcorn or soda in his lap. Almost out of residual spite, Richie let a few of his missed kernels fall on Eddie this time. 

Of course, it was all theatrics. Richie didn’t truly believe Eddie was in the same headspace as him. They’d both very recently gotten out of pretty major relationships. Richie wasn’t even truthfully sure whether Eddie had any meaningful feelings toward men in general. One kiss a long time ago was no confirmation. One burned out relationship with a woman wasn’t a denial, either, but Richie wasn’t one to get his hopes up. He was there to savor what he did have, and what he did have was Eddie laughing at his commentary on Jurassic Park, Eddie close enough that Richie could feel him shake the bed when he bobbed one of his feet, stretched out and socked, Eddie here. Eddie not still angry with him, as he maybe should have been, for the whole fiasco the month prior, for the loss of contact over the past couple years.

Somewhere, Richie found it within himself to believe that maybe Eddie was relieved to have him back too. And that was enough. 

He woke up, having not realized he’d dozed off, to Eddie attempting to turn off the lamp next to the futon without rousing him. As Richie, he discovered soon enough, had crashed on his shoulder. He picked his head up immediately, sick to his stomach suddenly with worry that he’d nudged one of those lines, but Eddie didn’t say anything of it. He turned off the light and asked if Richie wanted to keep the TV on, to which he did, thinking it would be better to have something to focus on rather than watching Eddie sleep soundly like he had the previous night and that morning, not wanting to feel pining or creepy about it. Eddie merely hummed and settled down, laying directly on his side this time instead of working up to it, and Richie was glad. 

As his attention swung back and forth between the rest of the movie and the way Eddie’s breath rose and fell steadily beside him, Richie was just glad to be there. 

**MONDAY: 7:45AM**

Eddie was madly jealous of Richie sleeping in on the futon as he bundled himself up and headed off to work.

He wondered briefly as he donned his coat if Richie had felt this way when he slipped out the previous morning, cautiously looking over Eddie fast asleep in bed. If he’d gotten a little flutter in his chest thinking about the fact that he’d just been there next to him, that they’d fallen asleep together. Then Eddie reminded himself that Richie wasn’t the one fighting feelings for his closest friend, that Richie was still fighting off feelings for his last girlfriend. 

Unfairly, that image of him plagued him the whole morning subway ride. Richie had pulled a pillow over his ears to shield his face from the pinkening sunrise, spread out carelessly half on his stomach, one socked foot dangling off the end of the stupid fold out mattress. The apartment had been basking in a cool grey wash as the sun just barely crept toward the horizon, desaturating Richie’s usually sun kissed skin. He didn’t tan well, sure, but Eddie could tell he spent a lot of time outside. Judging by the redness on his forearms, looking darker than Eddie’s in the darkness of the apartment where they laid next to each other the previous night during the movie, he got regular sun. Maybe he walked to work. Maybe he liked the beach. Took his lunch breaks at a local park, eating at a little wooden picnic table, enjoying the eternal southern California sunshine.

Eddie realized, as he arrived once again at his stale beige office, that, in a way, he had to get to know Richie again. 

_I get the joy of rediscovering you,_ he thought, heat in his cheeks when he settled into his bland little cubicle. He blamed it on Janice’s roaring space heater at the desk next to him. 

He’d been listening to that album a lot lately. 

Janice arrived shortly. She was someone Eddie truly didn’t mind at the office, a breath of fresh air from some of his other fellow coworkers. She was a little older, always excited to show Eddie new pictures of her grandkids, reminiscent of the ladies back at the Registrar’s office at school. She came in that morning and offered Eddie a silent wink as a greeting, not wanting to distract him as he got to work. But maybe an hour in, once Eddie leaned back in his chair to pull achy eyes away from his computer screen for a moment, she struck up a conversation with him that sent him down a slight spiral for the rest of the afternoon. 

Richie had been puttering around fairly uselessly all day. He’d stuck mainly to the apartment save a coffee and snack run, eating leftover spaghetti and finding himself enjoying himself with his bowl at Eddie’s little kitchen table. The light was amber by noon while he ate, washing the kitchen gold. He hadn’t bothered to convert the bed back to a couch yet, happy to laze about in it as the hours ticked closer to Eddie’s arrival home. Familiar, somehow. He glanced up at the ceiling. No more popcorn ceiling. Moving up in the world, maybe. 

Richie felt daydreamy. He was in New York city, actually in the city this time, surrounded by it on all sides in all its thrum and excitement, and all he wanted to do was pick through the books on Eddie’s shelf and lounge in his bed. He watered the plant on his windowsill, flipped through his records again, put a few on, sat on the kitchen counter. He opened a window just to see what it was like to lean out it, despite the cold, and withstood it long enough to catch the scent of a bakery down the street, which he took a moment to locate and hit up for a late afternoon snack. Richie found himself once more in Eddie’s bed, a book open on his chest, glasses low on his nose by the time 5:30 rolled around without him noticing. 

The door clattered open and broke the lazy silence of the afternoon, banging against the wall when Eddie bustled inside. 

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” he said in a rush. 

Richie looked up from the bagel clutched in his hands like a frightened raccoon found dumpster diving. “It’s wghat?” he asked, garbled, mouth half full. His brain tried uselessly to provide him with coherent thought, Eddie’s frantic buzzing throwing him for a loop. 

Was that a bad thing? That it was Valentine’s Day? Was that not okay? He lifted a knee to nudge the book closed, sitting up straighter and brushing crumbs off his shirt. 

Eddie hurriedly unbuttoned his coat but didn’t quite make it to fully removing it before he set to pacing. “I completely fucking forgot and then someone at the office asked me if I had plans tonight. Fuck.”

Richie swallowed his mouthful, a muscle in his jaw twinging. His stomach immediately felt heavy. “Christ, Eddie, you haven’t even been single for a month and you’re getting hit on—”

 _“No,_ not like that,” he said, eyes wide. He stopped momentarily in his tracks. “She asked what I was doing with _Myra,_ and for a second I panicked because thought I forgot our anniversary or something _then_ panicked because I just realized everyone at the office knew I was engaged and now I’m _not_ engaged, and—”

“Eddie, you gotta slow down here.” Richie held up a hand. His pulse was slightly elevated, which was concerning. But he’d live. “Can you pinpoint what’s actually freaking you out right now?” 

Eddie fretted, but paused in his pacing. Good thing too, Richie was worried he was going to burn tracks in the hardwood and lose his security deposit. “Um.” He carded his fingers through his hair and Richie ignored how he wanted to do that for him. “I think I’m worried that word’s gonna get out at the office?” 

“About the breakup?” 

“Yes?”

“Why is that a question? And why—” 

“I don’t know!” Eddie threw his hands up and Richie waved him down, trying to settle him again. “Fuck, I just— I guess it’s kind of embarrassing? That it didn’t work out.”

“Okay, and why are you coworkers going to be so concerned with it?” 

Eddie picked at his nails. He shrugged, opened his mouth. Closed it. “I don’t— it feels like a big deal.” 

“Listen, man,” Richie said, “I think you coworkers probably have bigger fish to fry then whether or not you’re single.” 

Eddie’s face went through a series of micro expressions. Kid had always been an open book in the face; Richie could watch every little passing worry and resolution and concern pass over him. Could since they were little. Eddie paused, sighed deeply, shoulders lifting up to his ears then slumping as the crease in his brow started to ease out. “Okay, yeah. Why would they care?” 

Richie gave him a sympathetic smile. “First Valentine’s Day single in a long damn time, huh?” He patted the empty side of the bed. “Welcome to the lonely hearts club.” 

“Yeah,” he breathed, finally taking off his coat. “What a relief, right?”

Richie blinked. Personally, he’d been absolutely dreading this Hallmark holiday. He’d been hyper aware of the date since November, dreading Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Valentine’s Day— surely their anniversary would sting come summer. He maybe wouldn’t have called it a _relief,_ but Eddie was admittedly attacking it from a different angle. He cleared his throat, a poppy seed irritating him. “Sure.” 

Once stripped down to his dress shirt and slacks, Eddie padded over and dropped onto his back onto the bed, one arm thrown over his face. Richie was glad his vision was obscured. He needed a couple seconds to come to terms with the little work outfit, to look him over and commit it to memory without being obvious. It felt like there was a particularly loud bee buzzing about his brain and bumping into things. 

“God, I can’t believe I forgot,” Eddie groaned. “When we made plans for you to come up I didn’t even pay attention to the date— you didn’t have plans, did you?” 

Richie nearly jumped, finding Eddie suddenly throwing his arm off his face and peering up at him. Then he laughed. Almost choked on another seed. _“Plans?_ What, you think I’m missing out on some hot date in the city of angels tonight?” 

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t fucking know, how should I know what you get up to these days?” 

“Eddie,” Richie chided, flicking a sesame seed off the top of his bagel at Eddie, who flinched a little dramatically. “No, I don’t have fucking Valentine’s Day plans, if I did I would have either cancelled or found a better time to come up here and see you. This stretch was just the cheapest ticket I could find, remember?” 

Eddie propped up on his elbows. His otherwise immaculate hair now stuck up at the back. The bee got louder, prodding at Richie’s prefrontal cortex. “Right, yeah,” Eddie muttered. He shimmied up until he was resting back on his hands, looking at whatever Richie had put on the TV without really seeing it. “Jesus, I didn't realize it was coming up so soon.” 

“Well, it’s here, buddy.” Richie had, yes, thought about the fact that he’d be spending Valentine’s Day with Eddie. He figured the fact that neither of them had mentioned it as a sort of mutual agreement, a Single Guys’ Night, or something. Richie risked a pat to Eddie’s shoulder and offered him a bite of bagel, which he kindly declined. Didn’t even scold Richie for eating something crumby in his bed. 

With another defeated little sigh, Eddie was silent. Richie let it hang, inching his knees up a little and trying to focus on Seinfeld. The plot of this one was lost on him. Might be the one with the soup. He kept the sneaking glances to a minimum, although with Eddie dressed like he was beside him, it was hard not to. His shirt was buttoned all the way up, white and pressed, the shoulder seams sitting just a little low on him, too broad in the shoulders. He had a ducktail coming undone in the back. Brown belt. Shiny buckle. Richie looked away, back to the screen, chewed his bagel in his mouth like cud until he noticed it was getting soggy. 

A thought came to Richie. At first, it was drowned out by the drone in his head. He had to search around for it, digging in the back of the bad ideas bin until it surfaced and immediately emerged from his mouth. 

“Why don’t we go out?” 

Cool. 

“What?” Eddie sounded frazzled, the look he gave Richie a little hectic. “Out?” 

Very very very cool. 

His mouth dried out slightly, speaking perhaps a beat too fast. He had to run with this now. “Yes, out. You know out?” Richie getsured widely in the general direction of the windows. Out. “If it’s Valentine’s Day and we’re two pretty recently single twenty-something guys, we might as well spend the night doing something other than eating pizza mournfully on the couch, right? That starts tipping a little too far into being pathetic.” 

Eddie was still, looking as if he thought staying in and eating pizza mournfully on the couch actually didn’t sound half bad. He sniffed, looking Richie over skeptically. Something in his eyes held a certain kind of worry Richie couldn’t quite understand. “And what, pick up girls?” 

Richie snorted. “Right, we’ll just draw a line with duct tape down the middle of your futon and stick to our respective sides while we bone down on the girls our sad sack asses are _definitely_ gonna pick up, that makes sense, Eddie.” 

Eddie spread his hands ostentatiously. “I’m just saying!” 

“You live in _New York,_ for fucks sake, let’s go get a drink then get street food or something. Show a guy a good time.”

“It’s a Monday night.” 

Richie cocked an eyebrow. “Is this not the city that never sleeps?” 

Eddie narrowed his eyes. “I’m pretty sure that’s in reference to the crackheads and feral cats that are up all hours of the night. The street vendors do go to bed at some point.” He crossed his arms as if he’d made a solid point. 

Richie lifted his shoulders and nodded his head slightly down toward Eddie. “Okay, and? Somebody’ll be selling a hot dog. It’s not even that late, for fucks sake, you just got home.”

Eddie slumped, sighing as if the very mention of leaving had exhausted him. “Can we worry about dinner first?” 

“Yeah, sure, let’s get dinner. Dinner here, quiet bar, nothing crazy, street food later if we feel like it. What’s the least romantic place you can think of, we can order takeout somewhere that won’t be slammed.”

He scrubbed a hand across his mouth, nodding slowly. “I could eat.” 

Richie deemed it safe and appropriate to pat Eddie on the back at that. Strictly encouragement. “That’s the spirit.” 

They tried an Indian place down the street that didn’t look too busy. Eddie had never had Indian food before, and was hesitant at best, spending entirely too much time at the register asking the poor girl working what specifically was in each dish that sounded remotely appealing. Richie was proud to have convinced him to have what he was having, prouder that, after poking around it for several minutes back at home, that he actually kind of liked it.

They argued for several minutes after finishing dinner about actually endeavoring to hit up a bar. Eddie seemed down to go, but only under strict conditions. Some of those conditions, it seemed, involved leaving no chance of running into Myra, although he admitted that she wasn’t the type to go out to a (“godforsaken”) bar on Valentine’s Day anyway. They waited until it was deemed properly late enough to start drinking in Eddie’s book (this time being closer to 10AM in Richie’s, depending on the day) and decided to try a place just within walking distance of Eddie’s apartment. They’d catch a cab back if necessary, but Richie had wanted enough walking room to actually run into a hot dog vendor. This he was very serious about. 

They changed, Eddie out of his work clothes and Richie out of the sweats and t shirt he’d sat around in all day. He showered and discovered it was a little difficult to actually change in Eddie’s minuscule bathroom, but muscled through having only banged his elbow on the wall twice. Eddie had, apparently, settled on a sort of vaguely brown flannel that was a few sizes too big for him, a plain t shirt, and jeans that also, honestly, didn’t fit him too well either. He’d seemed insulted when Richie called the look “pressingly heterosexual,” but with the beanie he’d added apparently just to keep himself warm on the walk, it was in all honesty. 

Richie donned a sweater that he’d deemed “fun” (and which was truthfully too warm to wear in California) and which Eddie decided was “ugly,” but they agreed to disagree. Richie thought the contrasting patterns were kind of cool, and the collar even had its own thing going on. The touch of red was nice. Eddie zipped up Richie’s coat all the way to his chin for him, seemingly embarrassed about just how “fun” Richie’s look was. Richie unzipped it just enough to show off the collar. Eddie very loudly made fun of the puff ball on Richie’s hat, which somehow only made Richie more enthusiastic about wearing it. 

Despite their best efforts to avoid the fact, the sidewalks were jammed with happy couples, the bar no different. Apparently Eddie was the only person who had a qualm about going out to celebrate on a Monday night. They had to walk shoulder to shoulder the whole way to the bar, Eddie more than once taking Richie’s arm to steer him out of someone’s way and barking at them in his honor. 

Richie was very careful in choosing not to bask too much in the excitement of all that. 

The bar was small, not packed wall to wall, thank god, but the two of them were hard pressed to escape the sheer amount of couples out on the pink and red painted town. 

“Singles awareness night,” Richie had lamented, which earned an earnest elbow to the ribs from Eddie, who thought it bad form of him to be bitter. 

And he wasn’t bitter, not really. Admittedly, trying to look more bitter than he was. 

Richie didn’t want to admit it, but, even under the given circumstances, he was still out on Valentine’s Day with the boy he’d had a crush on for well over a decade. He could let himself have that much, even if, at the end of the night, they’d end up sleeping a foot apart and Richie would be on a plane home in less than 24 hours. 

He intended to make it count. 

—platonically. 

Breakfast at Tiffany’s was playing when the two of them finally broke down to talk about their respective pathetic goddamn breakups. Took a couple drinks to get them there, but not nearly as many as it maybe should have.

The bartender shot Eddie a dirty look when he nearly choked on his martini, big eyes wide. 

“You threw up in a fucking _salad bowl?”_

Snickering despite the sad story, Richie nodded, forehead propped up in a hand. “In the salad bowl and on the table and on the floor a bit, yeah. There was some runoff.” 

_“Richie—”_

Eddie cackled, setting his drink down. He was just about through with his second. There was a special on something called a Love Martini— a somewhat violently sweet concoction of rum, peach schnapps, vodka, cranberry juice, and some other fruity embellishments, and Richie and Eddie were taking full advantage of the buy-one-get-one while they could. Richie had settled in warmly, happy as a goddamn clam to watch Eddie laugh over the tragic tale of his breakup.

Which, from where he sat that night, might not have been so bad after all. There was some humor to be found yet. As long as it made Eddie laugh. _Stale_ his ass. 

“It was not a very big salad bowl,” Richie admitted, rueful. “It was a mess, you should have fucking seen me. The table was covered in vomit and syrup and lettuce and eventually tears—”

“Oh my _god.”_

“Even after I threw up I was trying to finish my pancakes like I hadn’t just gotten my heart stepped on by the business end of a stiletto and thrown up all over the place. Someone eventually just came up and paid for my fucking meal. She really got me good, Eds, I _completely_ missed all the fucking warning signs, I was totally blindsided. Jesus, I was wearing this fucking ugly ass t shirt with Bart Simpson on it—” 

Eddie couldn’t catch a breath. He clawed at Richie’s sleeve, the sweater on full display with both of their coats and hats hanging on the hooks under the bar. “The fucking _Bart shirt?”_ he wheezed, eyes bright as if with tears. 

Richie barked a laugh. “Yeah! I got my heart broken in a fucking diner straight out of Pulp Fiction wearing the stupid fucking Bart shirt!” 

“Then you blew chunks in a _salad bowl,”_ Eddie added, still marveling at the fact. 

“And cried. Really loudly. The vomiting was also pretty loud, unfortunately, but—”

Eddie sucked down a few deep breaths and held up a hand, stopping Richie. “Tell me you weren’t doing that thing where you try to be quiet about it—” 

“You know I was.” 

“Richie,” he whined, “the fucking _sound_ you make when you hold back is so much grosser than just fucking letting it out—”

Richie tried his damndest to look hurt, one hand clutching at his chest. “You choose to lecture me on my puking form? While I’m recounting the worst fucking afternoon of my life to you?” 

Eddie snorted a little grossly, trying to play it off. “I’m sure you’ve had worse afternoons.” 

He cocked an eyebrow, taking it as a challenge. “Not yet, but when I eventually overdose—”

“Richard.” 

Richie broke up laughing again, a hand easily settling on Eddie’s shoulder, rocking him slightly. “You’re so easily scandalized, it’s fucking adorable. Next drink’s on me.” Richie slapped the bar, taking a breath. 

Having settled, Eddie sat up, swirling the remaining drops in his martini glass. “You got the last one.”

“And?” 

“Next two after that on me,” Eddie insisted. There was that determined glow behind his eyes that always drove Richie just a little mad. Eddie on the verge of doing something stupid was always caused a spike in Richie’s adrenaline. 

A grin pressed at Richie’s aching cheeks. He was sure he hadn’t smiled this much in months. “You’re not gonna be _standing,_ Kaspbrak, I’m gonna have to carry you out of here.” He jabbed a finger at Eddie’s sternum to make a point, his t shirt soft where his flannel was undone. He only had the last couple buttons together.

Eddie sniffed, lifting his drink as if to cheers before downing the rest. “Then carry me out of here, fuck it.” He set the empty glass back down on the counter and Richie whooped. 

It took Eddie half another martini to finally dig into his own baggage. The zipper had been slowly slipping the whole time Richie had been there, Eddie seemingly wanting to talk about it but unsure how, but alcohol had a way of working like a truth serum on him. 

Richie pointedly did not conjure up the memory of sitting with him on Stan’s checkered bathroom floor a few years prior. 

Eddie sighed weightily, forehead resting in his palm, fingers twirling the stem of a liquor soaked strawberry he’d plucked out of his drink to eat. “So, I didn’t wanna bring her over to my place or dump her at her place because I figured if I did it in her doorway there she’d think about it every time she came home and get sad, but if I let her invite me inside then she’d think I was there to hang out and I didn’t want to disappoint her, and I didn’t wanna do it in public because—”

“Getting dumped in public is deeply humiliating and worse when you throw up?” 

Eddie graciously tried not to laugh again, but seemed hard pressed. He nodded sagely, mouth tight to rein himself in. “Yeah. Yup.” 

“So how did it go? What the fuck did you tell her?” 

“Honestly, Rich, my brain kind of blanked out. I mean I was honest, I just— I tried to soften it the best I could?” 

“It’s not you it’s me, yada yada?” 

“Well it wasn’t her! It _was_ me!” 

Richie gave him a withering little look, one eyebrow drifting vaguely upward. “Was it?” 

“Yes!” Eddie insisted. He raked his fingers through his hair, a habit that was slowly freeing it from the hold of its gel and letting it fall loose and wavy and downright pretty over his damp brow in the stuffy bar. He groaned, sitting up and taking another sip of his drink. He was going down fast, words slurring the longer he went on. Richie thought to reign him in slightly, but he himself needed to catch up. And the deal was a two for one. Maybe he’d just drink the next two. Eddie pressed on, shaking his head, his smile dimming for the first time since they’d arrived. “I think— I think I just kinda told her it didn’t feel like it was working and getting married wouldn’t fix it. Like— I mean there were problems, admittedly. Before the whole— yeah.” 

“Like you not being in love with her for real?” 

“Ugh, shut up, yeah, but— like her mom? I dunno. I didn’t really like her mom, her dad and her brother hated my guts, that was clear—” 

“And your mom?” 

Eddie nodded. A given. “And my mom.” No clarification needed there. He sighed again, swirling his drink, watching the lime slice which had plunked down to the bottom tumble about. “It honestly wasn’t a good match from the start, Rich, we should have just stayed friends.” 

Richie hummed, a little pang of anxiety plucking at his nerves like guitar strings. “Right.” 

“She cried.” He huffed, scrubbing a hand down his face. “A lot.” 

“Oh, Jesus.” 

“I mean I expected her to. And she was mad, which she had a right to be. I was the one who asked her out, I was the one who proposed, you know, I could have— bucked up and not done any of that. Not wasted her time. _Years_ of her time.” 

Richie couldn’t help but scoff. “Dating you isn’t a waste of time.” He took a deep drink of his own martini before realizing what he’d said, taking his time in lowering his glass from his face. 

But Eddie wasn’t looking at him. He was looking off, glassy, shoulders slumped down. His stupid flannel was gigantic on him. There was something warm and fuzzy about that. If he let the martinis think for him, he wanted to crawl right into that flannel with him and wrap him up. Hell, he might even fit. He smiled despite himself, quickly pulling a sympathetic look when Eddie looked back at him. 

His eyes were gigantic, pupils swallowing the usual calm brown of his irises, dark and heady. Richie gulped. 

“Thanks, Rich,” Eddie said, his voice a little scratchy. He attempted a little smile and reached out to push clumsily at Richie’s elbow. “You too, I guess.” 

“Hell yeah,” was all Richie could think to say. 

They had another round. That one Eddie did pay for, but Richie drank most of. The first three were hitting Eddie, who was harder and harder pressed to stay upright on his stool without support. It gave Richie a selfish excuse to right him every once in a while, hands guiding on his shoulders or back in a way that made his heart titter around like a scared little bird.

“You’re a killer, you’ll get back out there,” Richie reassured him, hunched considerably further over the bar for support after martini 4.5. 

“I dunno, I dunno,” Eddie half whined, steadying himself on Richie’s arm. 

Kiss Me was playing over the intercom now. Richie had half a mind to sing along if he wasn't being so deadly serious. “No, Eds, I mean it, you’re— shit, dude.” 

“I’m shit?” 

“No,” Richie said, both of them wheezing a little at it. “No, no, you’re like— you have a job and an apartment and you’re bossy in like a hot way—”

“Bossy in a hot way?” Eddie snickered, sitting up and trying to steady himself. “And I look like a drowned water rat—”

“You do _not,”_ Richie insisted, draping one long arm completely across the bar. “I look way more rodent-like than you do, buster.” 

“Buster,” Eddie said under his breath, laughing at it. He might have been glowing a little in the warm bar lighting. It was a little too easy to fall in love with him like this, cheeks pleasantly ruddy, shirt collar rumpled, hair displaced, laugh coming as easy as Sunday morning sunshine. “No, you— you look— you look good, Rich.” Eddie swallowed audibly. “Really.” 

Suddenly embrassable, Richie buried his face in the crook of his extended elbow, dangerously close to just letting his forehead drop to the bar. He swore, picking his suddenly massively heavy head up. “Okay, uh—”

An announcement blared over the bar PA, making Richie jump and swear again. Eddie laughed when he put a steadying hand on him, his grip firm on Richie’s shoulder in a way that nearly made him shiver. Couples karaoke was to start shortly. 

Richie tipped his head back and groaned. “Oh, fuck me, no.” 

It was all Eddie could do to laugh for a moment. It rang like a bell, loud and unabashed and Richie’s favorite thing in the whole world. “Man, okay, okay—” 

“One for the road?” 

Eddie mulled it over, shooting Richie a puppy dog look that sent sparks crackling through his veins. “Uh— should we?” He eyed the remaining drops of Richie’s fifth martini, doing some mental math.

“We could do a shot.” 

Eddie clapped his hand heavily on Richie’s shoulder. “You’re gonna kill me, Tozier.” 

“You told me to carry you out, right?” 

Eddie hummed, his head dropping to one side like it was simply too heavy to lift anymore. “You can— you can do a shot, I’mgood. I’ll take this.” He pulled the remainder of the martini toward himself. 

He did look good. Both sufficiently drunk and, even in the weird frumpy little outfit, stupid pretty. Silver screen handsome in that way that made Richie feel like he needed to get up and go for a run. And Richie did not run. 

He ordered a shot of whiskey, which made Eddie wince just at the thought. The bartender looked skeptical, but Richie knew from experience in plenty bars that the bartenders weren’t paid to get the poor schmucks home safe, just paid to get them drunk as the poor schmucks pleased. He slid Richie his glass and Eddie their tabs, and Richie risked a wink at Eddie. 

“Watch this.” 

His eyes scanned him frantically, wondering what the fuck he was in for, when it struck him. Eddie’s eyes went wide. “Richie, _no—”_

Eddie’s voice died in his throat when Richie arched up to get a better angle, going down on the shot from above and picking it up with just his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut as he knocked it back, swallowed when he felt it hit the back of his throat, and lowered his head back down to drop the glass with a clatter, victorious. He smacked his lips and quickly swiped a string of spit off the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, already snickering before he got a good look at Eddie. 

He’d never seen him so red, flushed all the way down in his neck at an instant. Eddie looked a little shell shocked, sitting bolt upright, hands tight in his lap, eyes blown so wide Richie was worried they were going to pop right out of his head. It almost made Richie a little too proud to have inspired such a look.

Richie cracked up at the sight of him, and after another tense moment, Eddie did too, falling over onto Richie’s shoulder for support. He sort of melted, all those hard edges softening comfortably against Eddie’s side, his voice hoarse with laughter. 

“Why the fuck would you do that in _public,”_ Eddie lamented through peals of laughter. “You’re sick.” 

“I’m a sick puppy, yeah,” Richie agreed, taking several seconds before he had the air to muster up speech. “Fuck, okay. Let’s leave?”

“Let’s leave.” 

“Settle your tab, you little criminal, I’ll walk you home safe.” 

The song was stuck unfairly and firmly in his head. 

_Kiss me out of the bearded barley_

_Nightly, beside the green, green grass_

_Swing, swing, swing the smthn smthn uh_

_Shoes, dress, smthn_

_Something about the the milky twilight_

_Da da da da moonlit floooor_

_Lift your open hand strike up the band, and makethefirefliesdancesilvermoon's sparkling—_

Eddie was clinging to Richie at that point, happy about it regardless. He knew the way just fine, no one was paying attention to a couple of drunks staggering back to a bachelor pad together, it was fine. Safe for now. He’d insisted on wearing Richie’s hat, wanting to illustrate just how stupid it looked on himself, but found it to be delightfully warm. 

And Richie looked just downright nice in Eddie’s beanie, his unruly hair sticking out at odd angles, curls framing his face, his jaw, the clean sun kissed line of the back of his neck. He hadn’t zipped up his coat, hot from the warmth of the bar, and the sweater, gaudy as it was, was admittedly kind of cute. The stripes made him look broader, the collar sagging just enough to reveal one knob of his collar bones. From where Eddie staggered next to him, he could trace up the line of his throat, over his Adam's apple, the corners of his jaw, his mouth, still moving, singing or talking or something, Eddie didn’t care. He was just delighted he was here. 

He must have expressed that sentiment a million times on the walk home. 

_Rich, I’m so happy you made it out here, man. I’m glad to see you, dude, I’m glad you’re here._

Punctuated with a _man,_ a _dude,_ a hiccup, sometimes, not diffusing the honesty, just muffling the deafening affection. He toyed with the odd collection of twine and leather bracelets on Richie’s wrist at some point, leading him about by his sleeve when he got enough balance back to walk. 

They couldn’t find hot dogs, but the gyro guy was still cooking when they passed. While Eddie swore up and down he wouldn’t be able to stomach it at this point, he had several big bites of Richie’s instead of buying his own. Richie bitched loudly about this, much to Eddie’s satisfaction. He yanked the hat off Eddie’s head by the puffball several times as they trekked back, which gave Eddie a good excuse to chase him around for it, dodging other locals just trying to get home. 

An older woman at one point approached Richie, offering him a rose (“for a dollar, to give to a lucky girl”) from a bundle tied with a gaudy pink bow, and Richie graciously dug up a few bucks for her. Eddie stood quietly off to the side, watching the exchange, pretending with all the reason left in him not to want that stupid fucking flower, charmed beyond belief when Richie asked if he could give the her a little Valentine’s Day kiss on the cheek. She accepted graciously and laughed when Richie made a big deal of it, tipping the bill of an imaginary hat at her as they finally passed. 

His heart clambered into his throat and thumped around when Richie rejoined Eddie, linking arms with him and tipping his head down to mutter into his ear, breath warm in the cold February air.

“You mind holding onto this for me?” he asked, Eddie’s knees weak enough to nearly make him stumble. “I need to swing both of these gorilla arms around to keep upright and I don’t wanna send us both sprawling trying not to drop it.” 

Like a shared secret, Eddie quickly tucked the rose into his coat, giving Richie a little shove to test his balance for good measure, high as a kite. 

Almost as a game with himself as the only player, Eddie stuck to the road side of the sidewalk. His mom had told him to do that once. Gentlemen walked on the side of the street. Richie very nearly tripped into the gutter at one point anyway, but Eddie was there to catch him. 

Richie was distracted one last time on the home stretch, Eddie’s building only a couple blocks away. A man with an accordion. Eddie knew the moment he heard music and singing that he was about to be yanked in whatever direction it was coming from, but he yelped anyway when Richie steered him down an alley and out into a little square. It was something like _That’s Amore,_ Eddie couldn’t be sure, didn’t have a chance to listen, because Richie was readily swinging him around by both arms. He spun him a little too quickly in a little turn and Eddie burst out laughing, unable to even stop and warn him off. They could dance in Stan’s apartment, even back at Eddie’s if they wanted, safely behind closed doors, but they had to be careful out here. 

Richie had a bad habit of throwing caution to the wind when he got like this. Eddie had a bad habit of enjoying it immensely. Eddie stumbled a little and Richie caught him against his chest then promptly stepped on one of his toes. Eddie snorted a little too loudly, clapping a hand over his mouth and fending Richie off with the other. His glove clapped loudly against Richie’s sweater. The accordion player sang on, another voice rising dissonantly from another corner of the square. Eddie shook himself off, trying to help Richie find his balance, when it became clear that the other voice was shouting, and that the shouting was directed at the two of them. 

“Oh, shit,” Richie said, snickering as if they’d just been caught by the middle school principal up to no good. 

“What’d they say?” Eddie asked, ears straining, something cold in his blood telling him not to investigate much further. His sneakers suddenly felt planted to the ground, something wired running through the air. 

Richie only hesitated for a second longer, tense like a hare, sharing a quick little look with Eddie. “Nothing good, surely.”

Eddie was drunk, he’d be the first to admit it, but his fight or flight instincts were infallible, even like this. The hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end, the instinct to cling to Richie’s wrist conflicting with the notion that touching him at all right now was going to make things worse for the two of them. 

Another shout, closer, a trio of men headed in their direction at what just broke a walking pace. “Fuck, shit, _go—”_ Richie said quickly, barking a little laugh when he stumbled and turned Eddie back in the direction they’d come from. 

It only took Eddie a second to wind up. He broke into a run, one hand clamped onto Richie’s sleeve so as not to lose him, the other holding onto the hat that threatened to slip off his head. 

It should have been frightening at the least, it should have been dire, but fuck, all Eddie could think, strangely, was that he’d outrun much bigger and badder. Most times with Richie still there at his side. They were experts at this. They were in middle school running from bullies and making it out, miraculously, the exhilaration of outrunning and outwitting them by banking a sharp corner and watching them run past some sick kind of thrilling. It felt like winning. Eddie did just that, yanking Richie a little roughly into the dark space between two buildings, holding him still with a palm pressed to his chest. 

The guys jogged past, heads on the swivel. Eddie waited until they dipped down another side street, counting his breaths, lungs burning wonderfully in the bitter air, before taking off again in the opposite direction, Richie panting in tow. He laughed, once, sharply, and Richie sort of wheezed behind him, keeping up the best he could, as Eddie ran them home. Only another block or so, but he heard the same voice bark at them again just before Eddie rounded his building, heading for the back entrance and pelting through the door. 

It shut solidly behind them, leaving them in the dimness of a dank back stairwell, one hazy yellow light illuminating them both in sharp panes and angles. Eddie crashed into Richie’s chest, which backed him up against the harsh brick wall, gloved little hands fisted in his sweater, ears ringing. Richie’s came up instinctively to wrap around his wrists, finding that his fingers encircled them entirely, a fact that clattered around like a marble in his empty skull.

Richie found he was shaking a second later, trembling with an odd stale mixture of fear and cold and _joy,_ of all things, the shock of terror that had bolted down his back at getting chased down subsiding a little too quickly and melting into relief to be out of the street and, yeah, sheer joy at just being with him. At escaping. At having him here, now, suddenly very close and very warm, thrumming and alive under Richie’s fingers and lined up against his front, panting. 

Richie looked down at him and suddenly felt a strange grip of desperation, a drop of sweat running cold down the back of his neck. There was a door in front of him, unlocked, the doorknob ornate and inviting, a door he wanted so, so cloyingly to open but couldn’t out of the fear of the unknown on the other side.

A pang struck Richie in the chest looking at Eddie like this, red faced and exhilarated, an almost childish litany overtaking his thoughts, a prayer of _please, please like me. Please like me as much as I like you. Please do something about it._

But it was, in playground rules fairness, Richie’s turn. Very technically. All outlying factors ignored, Eddie had made the first move. And Richie had to take the reins this time if he wanted absolutely anything to happen. 

But those outlying factors were glaring in Richie’s periphery, high beams blinding in the rearview at night. The time spent apart, the mistake of rejecting it the first time, Eddie’s ongoing recovery from his last relationship, Richie’s baggage from his, the fledgling bud of trust and familiarity that hadn’t even fully bloomed again between the two of them. It was so delicate, blown glass fragile, but Eddie’s hands felt so sturdy where they pressed against his chest, his palms suddenly flattening out, fingers spreading wide like he couldn’t help touching him, the brick wall solid behind him, the two of them real and tangible and corporeal in the stairwell. 

Richie’s arms went around him automatically, hitching him closer. Eddie huffed out a harsh breath. Holding Eddie like this, feeling the ferocious buzz of him this close, all his neurotic energy crackling in the damp stairwell, Richie couldn’t help but think 

_We’ve done it once. What’s one more?_

There were exposed wires here, electricity snapping dangerously close to water when Richie’s eyes dragged slowly down to Eddie’s mouth, soft and pink and slanted with an uninhibited smile, and in the same instance that Richie leaned down to chase it, Eddie’s head dropped back with an unabashed laugh. 

“Oh, _fuck,”_ Eddie panted, eyes squeezed shut. “Oh, god, fuck, my balls are in my fucking throat, I thought we were fucked for a second.” 

For an odd beat, Richie helplessly wanted to cry. He felt like breaking down, trembling as he was, holding Eddie as he cackled through it like a madman, the relief suddenly all the more pressing. That actually could have been bad. Richie had inadvertently put them in some kind of danger back there, that could have really, to put it lightly, put a damper on their night. But fuck, he couldn’t cry, so he had to laugh too. Hyena hectic and a little crazed, hoarse, releasing that residual frantic scared energy. He squeezed Eddie against his chest, burying his face in his hat and laughed, letting it fill the stairwell, mingling with Eddie’s, and ricochet back to them, blocking out the rest of the world for a moment. Richie gulped down air to steady himself, the scent of Eddie’s hair gel crowding his senses. He pressed his nose down into the soft yarn of the stupid hat, puffball tickling his nose, and breathed in the scent of wool and sweat and Eddie. “Thank fuck,” was all he could say for a second. “Thank fuck.” 

They remained like that for a moment which turned quiet, laughter dying down, breath regulating, pulses still roaring dull in ears. Richie held onto him like that, scrubbing his hands down Eddie’s back through his coat, dizzy with how overwhelmingly good it felt. Even in a dingy stairwell, bundled in too many layers, having just run for what might have been their lives. 

Eddie said something after a point, muffled in Richie’s sweater. Richie hummed, lifting his head to let Eddie do the same. 

“This door doesn’t lock,” he repeated. “‘N we should— bed.” 

Richie groaned a wordless complaint.

 _“Bed,_ I have t— fuck, I have work tomorrow, fuck. _Fuck,_ I’m gonna be hungover.” 

“Whoops,” Richie said innocently, voice pitching up. Eddie jabbed him in the ribs and made him wince. “Okay, okay, _water_ then bed.” 

Eddie pulled back just slightly, hands slipping to the insides of Richie’s arms, and nodded resolutely. “Water then bed. Uh.” He glanced over his shoulder, sniffing. His eyes looked a little shiny. They clung to Richie’s gaze, something stirring behind them, a passing thought that made Eddie’s breath shorten for only a second. He faltered, then cleared his throat, turning. “Elevator’s that way.”

The elevator was quiet, the space a little charged. It was a relief when the doors slid open, the pair of them suddenly exhausted from the night as they padded down the drafty hallway to Eddie’s door. Once inside, Eddie wriggled out of his coat as quickly as he could, hanging it gingerly so as not to upset the rose on the inside pocket. 

Richie plodded off to the bathroom and scrubbed his teeth, still fully dressed, as Eddie dragged out the bed once again, which took a little drunken manhandling. Resigning himself, with a glance over the shoulder to make sure the bathroom door was firmly shut, he stepped out of his jeans and his flannel, clambering under the covers in just his t-shirt and boxers. He immediately sank into the squeaky mattress like it was sheer heaven, a sigh tumbling from his mouth. His blood still felt heavy and pounding in his veins, the bed swaying slightly from side to side. Richie, appearing soundlessly from the bathroom, clicked the lights off and joined him moments later, and Eddie, emboldened by alcohol and craving the closeness of the stairwell, sidled up against his chest to find him shirtless, just in his shorts and socks. Richie tensed at first, unsure wether it was alright, but Eddie was all too happy to throw an arm across his ribs and press his cheek into Richie’s sternum. There was a coarse scrabble of hair there that could have, in another life, been uncomfortable, but Eddie couldn’t bring himself to mind. He merely wondered aloud when the fuck that had gotten there, to which Richie just replied with a light laugh, Eddie’s toes curling when he felt the vibrations of it ring through his chest. Richie patted around for the remote and clicked on the TV, Eddie hearing the scratchy lullaby of an older movie pour through the aging speakers, eyelids drooping, mind lulled to pleasant static by the thrum of Richie’s heart. 

He felt a big heavy hand drop over his back, stroking evenly between his shoulder blades, up and down his spine, and he sighed like a dog on a cool tile floor on a hot day, utterly spent, criminally comfortable. He nosed upward against Richie’s throat and just breathed in, a little intoxicated by the achingly familiar scent. 

“You look a little like Al Pacino,” Richie muttered, Eddie enjoying the rumble of his voice in his chest, his throat. 

Eddie hummed again. His thumb swept over Richie’s side, pleased to feel his skin flinch slightly from the contact. “Do I?” 

“I think so,” Richie mused. “In the eyes. Puppy dog eyes.” His voice was muslin, cottony when it fell on Eddie’s ears. His hand smoothed again down his back, warm, and Eddie couldn’t help but shiver. It fit on the upswing, it fit perfectly between his shoulder blades.

He’d wanted this, his drink-dull brain reminded him. There had been certain nights, even before they’d planned for Richie to visit, nights where Eddie was deemed safe under the guise of his girlfriend, wherein Eddie had thought about this. Nights even further back, nights as a kid, tucked up in his twin bed and startled by passing shadows of tree branches on the wall, wishing Richie in his wisecracking bravery was there to call Eddie a fraidy cat and coax him into his own courage. To stay up under blankets reading comics by flashlights. Nights in high school when he missed the sleepovers, few and far between as they were for Eddie whose mother didn’t like him out of her sight overnight when she could help it. Missing sleeping just near him, in the sleeping bag a foot away, on the couch with Richie curled on the carpet in Stan’s basement, the camping mattress in Bill’s backyard. Nights in college wishing Richie would come see him, nights wishing he’d buck up and go himself to Boston. And since he had, since Richie had come up to see him, Eddie had gotten it in parts. Slices, pieces of a whole. Falling asleep on the couch so long ago, getting too close the next night in bed. Barely a taste, one marred with shame from the whole ordeal, yet recurring in dreams, the exact heat of Richie’s skin this close to his own when no one was watching. He’d barely barely scratched that surface, and wanted it back, and here it was. Here Eddie was, safe again this time under the excuse of a few too many martinis, his head on Richie’s chest, his knee draping over one of his thighs, his heart beating against the back of his tongue, lodged in his throat in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. 

He could have it now, and maybe the memory would help him sleep later, when Richie was gone again. He could have it just now, and maybe he could live with just that much. 

“Everything I want is in this room,” said a voice from the television, presumably Al Pacino’s, but somewhere, under the blanket of drunkenness and exhaustion, Eddie could imagine it being his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs mentioned:  
> Frontiers (album) - Journey (specifically Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) and Faithfully)  
> Breakfast at Tiffany's - Deep Blue Something  
> Kiss Me - Sixpence None The Richer
> 
> there is no war in ba sing se


	27. THE EVOLUTION OF A VINYL COLLECTION (AMONG OTHER THINGS): PART 2

**TUESDAY: 8:56 AM**

Richie snapped awake when Eddie kneed him directly in the balls. 

The silent apartment burst into sound, cussing and groaning and the creaking of bedsprings, confused limbs tangled in bedsheets, a frantic apology. Eddie wasted no time in bolting out from under the covers, the apartment feeling freezing on his feverish skin, tripping over himself to find his wardrobe in the much too-bright apartment. His head felt like it was splitting in two, hardly able to open his eyes past slits as he clawed through his clothes to find something that was ironed. 

Richie promptly tucked himself into a ball, whining, both sore from the attack on the family jewels and the hangover that roared to life the moment his eyes had snapped open. Mockingly, Eddie’s alarm went off then, beeping cheerfully on an automatic snooze as it had been, apparently, for the last hour. Richie swiped frantically for it with his eyes closed in an attempt to fend off the sound and shut it up, only to hear it clatter to the ground and stop, evidently unplugged. 

Eddie swore, apparently having caught a whiff of himself when he raised an arm to yank on his shirt and dashed to the bathroom, the shower coming on a moment later. 

Richie was left alone in sudden silence. He wasn’t really hurt, more surprised and a little sore, but he winced as he gingerly meandered a hand southward to assess the situation. No permanent damage, it was safe to assume his fertility was still intact, but  _ christ, _ did Eddie have some bony knees. Motherfucker. His own thighs were slick with sweat, sticking together slightly as he carefully unwound himself and rolled onto his protesting back, the physics of how the fuck that had happened slow to process.

They’d slept so closely their legs had been stacked. Shared body heat was still trapped under the covers where Richie lay disoriented and picking through scraps of drowsy recollection at the tail end of the night, finding the sense memory of Eddie’s weight settling next to and against him coming back stronger than any coherent thought about it. Richie’s internal temperature clicked up steadily and he threw back the covers to cool off, shivering in the sudden drop. He wanted desperately to pull the pillow over his head and sleep off the hangover, sleep off the warm heady feeling of Eddie all over him that lingered on his skin, but—

Fuck. Alarm. Work. Late. Eddie hungover late for work bad. Help? Could he help.

Richie lifted his head, wincing. The room swung. Kitchen this way. It took some ambling, swearing, a hand delicately cupped against his crotch, but Richie made it, picking through the cabinets for supplies as quickly as his soft-serve brain would allow. 

A few hectic seconds later, Eddie darted out of the shower, damp hair dripping onto his pressed shirt, to find Richie had brewed coffee. 

Wordlessly, Richie held out a mug to Eddie as he did up his buttons rapid fire. He burned his mouth taking a sip and nearly spilled all over himself making a dash for his wardrobe in search of pants, nearly doing it again reaching for his coat, neither of them quite intelligent enough for words as Eddie put himself together and snatched his keys from the door. Richie waved at him weakly as he dipped out, Eddie waving back with nothing more than a stiff flick of his wrist. 

It took until he was seated on the subway to realize he’d brought his mug with him. And his shirt was a button off all the way down. 

And he’d let it happen again. 

Again, Richie was left to his own devices, disgruntled and unsteady in the (normally beautiful, now annoyingly) sun bathed kitchen. His headache and pride fought against a deep seated giddy sort of feeling, something bubbly enough to stir up his stomach in a bad way. He burned his shaky fingers pouring himself a mug of joe, clattering around in search of sugar, hoping that Eddie had been okay with his coffee black. 

The coffee helped only marginally. Richie winced through it, breath heavy and snuffling as he downed as much as he could, one hand on his gut to try and keep the sick feeling at bay. He needed diner greasy hash browns or a burger, but the thought of actually eating brought him close to yartzing. 

He was going to have to lean onto the old tried-and-true to make it through the morning. Not like he had anything better to do as it was. After giving his mug a quick rinse in the sink, Richie pawed around the kitchen for wherever Eddie kept his booze. He snagged the first bottle he found, one buried in a forgotten cabinet, and took a ginger sip, praying he’d make it through the next ten minutes without vomiting in Eddie’s kitchen sink. That was the last thing he needed to do. It was bitter and none too soothing, but warm— an improvement on the creeping chill of the kitchen, tile mercilessly cold. Richie lowered the bottle and swiped a hand across his mouth, still fighting to gather his bearings. He felt undressed, he  _ was _ undressed, he realized, in one sock and his boxers in Eddie’s kitchen, and he downed another sip and ambled back to bed to try and make the exposed feeling go away.

It didn’t, not quite, it only roused more slightly delirious memories of Eddie snuggling up to him, presumably much drunker, presumably with no goddamn clue what he was doing. No clue that Richie silently was going nuts beside him. Drunk enough to enjoy it, wits about him enough to dread the cruel light of morning which would inevitably shine down on a mild but less-than innocent mistake. The pillows still smelled like Eddie, but now more so like  _ them. _ Both of them. Shared space. And didn’t that hurt to think about.

Another quick pull off Eddie’s cheap (and previously untouched) whiskey and Richie decided he could stand to file those thoughts away for later, for back at home, for at least when his brain wasn’t trying to crack his skull from the inside out. 

Eddie felt useless at work, bumbling about, unable to focus for more than a handful of minutes at a time. 

Richie felt useless back at the apartment, eventually getting sick of it and meandering out of bed to try and do something about it. 

Both were grateful to a point for the headaches, which blocked out any obnoxious thoughts, up until a certain point. Richie managed to hair-of-the-dog and nap his away, glad for the blank dreams; Eddie was forced to chug watery office coffee and scarf down a breakfast sandwich to try and keep his from getting worse as he glared at the too-bright glow of his computer screen under sterile fluorescent office lighting. He could have bit the face off of the first temp to comment that  _ Kaspbrak had a good night, from the looks of it. _ Very nearly did. Would have if he didn’t already feel like he’d been pummeled to a pulp by a gorilla. Somehow, maybe by the merciful grace of some god, the day blew by. Eddie stumbled through it then stumbled back to the subway, his mug still in tow, having been filled and emptied more times than it should have in one day.

He had time, finally, sitting sandwiched between two other commuters with seemingly equally dark circles under their eyes, mug dangling precariously on one crooked pinkie between his knees, to dread facing Richie about it. 

He’d made himself a promise somewhere along the line of deciding to acknowledge he was gay and inviting Richie to stay at his place again: he wasn’t going to cross any lines. Wasn’t going to impress any feelings onto the poor guy, no matter how magnetized his heart seemed to be to him. Wasn’t going to betray his trust one more goddamn time and make him uncomfortable, make  _ things _ uncomfortable, touch him in a way that was outside of routine friendliness or banter, and here he’d gone again. He’d felt nauseous all day, but as his train rushed closer and closer to his stop, he felt downright sick.

His feet were lead on the steps back up to the street, awkward apologies scattering like dry leaves in a gust of wind when he tried to think of what the hell to say about it, if anything. He didn’t want to address it, didn’t want to consider the possibility that Richie also remembered the achingly tender way Eddie had stroked his thumb along the ridge of his lowest rib, something that indicated something much more than one guy just happy to see his old buddy in town after a few years of hard distance. 

His hand trembled as he fit his key into the lock, taking a few precious seconds to get it properly lined up and turned. He dearly didn’t want to face him. But he equally dearly wanted to collapse onto the couch next to him, wiped to shit, and revel in the last dying hours of his presence in Eddie’s typically desolate little apartment. 

But Richie, Eddie noticed immediately, was packed. His stomach twisted when he saw the duffel bag all zipped and ready by the door, scared Richie wanted to run again, but a quick sweep around the apartment revealed it was seemingly nothing more than a chore completed out of the boredom of being left alone. The apartment had been tidied. Bed put away. And there was Richie, now fully clothed in jeans and an old tshirt, pilled and soft looking, draped across the couch just as Eddie had pictured him all day, hair damp from a shower. 

Eddie, oddly, could have cried. Almost did. 

“Jesus, buddy,” Richie said, first semi-intelligent words from either of them since the previous night. “You look like you took down four martinis last night or something.” 

Guilt sank into his gut, throat going dry. “I am,” he said, shoulders sagging, pulling off his coat and hanging it by muscle memory,  _ “so _ sorry.” 

Richie had it in him to scoff. He swung one long leg down from the couch, peering at Eddie across the room. “For nearly sterilizing me?” 

He’d nearly forgotten about that, but, thank god, he had a few seconds to get embarrassed about it all over again. His arms fell limply at his sides, eyes squeezing shut.  _ “Yes,” _ Eddie panted. “And for— oh, god, I was—” he scrubbed a hand through his hair, swallowing his words dry. His throat burned, irritated. “Fuck, water.” 

Richie nearly got up, Eddie holding up a hand to stop him. Mug forgotten quickly on the counter, he ducked his head straight under the kitchen sink and took several loud gulps, pulling back only when he was sure another sip would make him throw up. He braced himself against the sink on stiff arms, taking a few steadying breaths, before turning and scrubbing his mouth with the heel of his hand. 

Richie was now sitting primly on the couch, knees together, bright eyes bugging with concern. Eddie stared at him. Richie patted the cushion next to him. Eddie felt like a rat in a trap of his own design. He took a shaky breath, hair damp at the back of his neck where it just brushed his collar. 

“I—” 

Richie cut him off. “Just sit down, Eds, Jesus. You look like hell.” 

Eddie just sat down. Collapsed, more like it. He let his head drop back and groaned, wanting badly to melt into the couch and maybe disappear forever. “What time’s your flight?” He was very conscious of the fact that he hadn’t yet met Richie’s eyes, hadn’t looked exactly directly at him yet, but he still didn’t want to. He pressed a hand to his clammy forehead. 

“We don’t have to leave for another hour or so.” 

“Thank fuck,” Eddie breathed, eyes closed. Somehow, despite it all, his body found it in him to feel simultaneously wired and uncomfortable. He wanted to shut up, wanted to linger where he was, where he could feel Richie’s weight sunk into the cushion next to him, but he couldn’t help but chatter. “God, Richie, I’m sorry I couldn’t—”

“Couldn’t what?” 

“It’s your last day here,” he muttered, letting both hands drop limpley beside him. “And I fucking ran out of here and spent the whole fucking day at work. I was at least going to make breakfast—”

“And you tried to scramble my eggs instead?” 

Eddie very nearly had it in him to laugh. It was more of a breath, a little hitch, and a flick of his hand against Richie’s arm beside him. “I said I was sorry about that. I wake up jerky.” 

Richie flicked back at Eddie’s hand, which allowed a little tinge of relief to run though him. Confirmed that he hadn’t somehow crossed such a line that Richie couldn’t bear to touch him ever again. “You fall asleep jerky. It’s cause for concern.” His voice came out softer than Eddie liked, almost gentle. “I’m not dying, Eddie, I’m just going back to California.” 

His stomach tightened. “Yeah,” Eddie half spat, exhaustion making it sound bitter. “Back to California.” 

“Ooh, he bites,” Richie said. Eddie felt the weight of his arm thunk over the back of the couch and was too busy overthinking how close it was to his shoulders to comment. “Have you really managed to stay this hungover for this long?”

He wanted to whine, deeply, but desperately didn’t want to sound whiny. “Yes,” he breathed, managing to keep it as stable as possible. His nose twitched, and when he opened his eyes, Richie’s were trained on his face. His blood sang. Hadn’t fucked up enough that Richie couldn’t look at him, either. Maybe it was okay. Maybe he had overthought the severity of the possible consequences of falling asleep on your shirtless friend’s chest. “I’ve had one egg sandwich and a bucketful of coffee today, so now I’m hungover and hungry and those two don’t mix well.” 

Richie blinked, owlish, thumb running over the nail of his pointer finger. “Do you want me to m—”

Eddie sat upright.  _ “No,” _ he barked, leaning forward and away from even the thought of Richie’s arm dropping to his shoulders. God forbid rubbing one. No. “No, Rich, you’ve done  _ enough—”  _

And when he glanced back toward him, Richie looked hurt. Much too bright eyed and bushy tailed for everything he’d drank the previous night, sure, but crestfallen suddenly. Then Eddie realized what he’d said. “I mean you’ve done enough for me, not— you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re fine. You just keep—”

Richie blinked again and Eddie lost steam, sighing. He raked his fingers through his hair, frowning. 

“Coddling you?” Richie ventured, looking almost nervous about it in a way that made Eddie feel slightly on edge. 

“No,” Eddie admitted, because that wasn’t it. “You don’t coddle me, you’ve just— I’m supposed to be hosting you and you were the one who went out and bought me breakfast and made dinner and found a good Indian place for us last night.” He tried to relax, but couldn’t sit too far back. “I’ll make it up to you, you don’t have to do anything else.” 

Richie scoffed, the bastard. “You don’t have to make up for shit, this was nice.” 

“Nice?” Eddie asked, trying not to sound too desperately like he really wanted it to have been nice for him. 

“Yeah,” Richie said. Thankfully, he finally dropped his arm, folding his hands a little stiffly in his lap. Eddie was freer to sit back, but didn’t, still perched at the edge of his cushion. “I’m hoping I only raised enough hell that you want me back to do it again sometime.” 

Eddie suddenly felt warm again. Flushed, a little, but fuzzy. It was comforting as it was confusing. He had it in him to grin, just barely, still tired. 

He wanted him here. Badly. He wanted him to stay, wanted to get so goddamn tired of Richie he couldn’t listen to a note of his voice without gagging. But Richie did have to go. Even if he could come back eventually. For a while, Eddie had to let go. Eddie had to trust Richie wouldn’t make a break for it this time.

Eddie had to relinquish a little control and find it in himself not to worry about something he had no control of. 

He gave Richie a jab to the ribs just hard enough to make him wince, savagely pleased at the way he squirmed away from him and nearly broke into a laugh. “You’re on thin fucking ice, Tozier, but I just might.” 

Sometimes Richie looked at Eddie for a moment too long and fully wanted to turn himself inside out. Such was the case as Eddie hauled Richie’s single duffel bag from his ugly, scrappy little red car and out onto the sidewalk outside LaGuardia, bundled in his stupid navy blue parka with the fur lined hood, wrapped up in his red beanie and slightly too-thick gloves. Maine had never left him, it seemed: Richie almost wondered if he was sporting long johns and wool socks under his jeans and frayed white sneakers just in case a Nor’easter happened to plow the city down on the way to the airport. It was too easy to recall the image of Eddie toddling through knee deep snow on the way to school back at home, plowing forward with stiff frozen determination at a 45 degree angle, fingers resolutely clutched around the handle of his Thundercats lunchbox. He set the bag down and flexed his fingers in his gloves, a black lock of hair stark against his winter pale forehead, freckles standing out darkly against his red cheeks. 

Richie wanted dearly to hug him before he went. Just as a promise, as a confirmation that things were okay. But the last time he’d thrown his arms around him in public was still gnawing at the back of his mind. A rational fear, even if—

Then Eddie took care of it himself. Richie was surprised again when he threw his arms around him, if only for a moment, getting in a tight squeeze before backing off, cheeks flushed from the cold. 

“Don’t crash the fucking plane.” 

Richie barked a laugh, feeling something buzzing restlessly in his chest. “Do you think  _ I’m _ flying it?” 

Eddie punched him directly in the sternum, the blow muffled by his glove and Richie’s jacket, and they both laughed. Stupid, childish— Richie didn’t want to go home. 

“You could drive the pope to cuss, Rich, I don’t think you’d be hard pressed to talk the pilot into a sudden rapid descent.” 

He wished he could hug him a second longer. Maybe under the excuse of the cold. Richie, instead, reached out to scrub Eddie’s head just enough to displace his hat and ruck up static in his hair underneath it, knowing that would annoy him.

It did the trick, and Richie was rewarded graciously with a little rant right there in front of the terminal entrance, thinking that Eddie ran so hot he probably didn’t need the dumb little parka even out in the bitter cold.

“I swear, I’m going to get you a tan in February, Kaspbrak, you’re gonna love Cali.”

“I think I’m gonna burn to a fucking crisp because I’m sure you don’t own a single drop of sunscreen.” 

“So you will come visit me?” 

“I have savings. I can probably afford a ticket if I can get a couple days off.” 

“You have every weekend off.” 

“I want more than a weekend. You darken my doorstep for days at a time, you have to deal with me for more than two days.” 

“Promise?” 

“Don’t get too excited, you’ll piddle all over the floor.” 

They lingered, but Richie had to walk away eventually. Had to shoulder his bag and leave a wink that only Eddie would ever see, had to turn, walk through the doors, glance over his shoulder and deeply, terribly admire the way Eddie stood there for a moment on the curb, looking only a little lost in a way Eddie was never lost, before ducking into his little compact car to head back home, alone. 

It was like this, and Richie had to wonder if it always would be— watching him from a distance, heart brimming in secret, tree sap thoughts contained within his skull and behind his ribs. Thinking that Eddie Kaspbrak was maybe his favorite person in the whole wide world, but that it wouldn’t be fair to Eddie or himself or anyone else to voice that too loudly, too sincerely. His throat was dry, knees watery as he padded into the confusion of the airport, hating the prospect of a nearly six hour stretch of his own thoughts to slough through without enough money for an in-flight drink to at least ease the edge off. 

He’d see him again. But ever since he was 14, Richie was still struggling to swallow the pill of the fact that he’d never know when. That Eddie was more than a bike ride away. 

Eddie was still hungry when he returned to his apartment, the one McChicken he’d picked up with Richie on the way to LaGuardia still not hitting the spot. He ducked inside, nose red from the cold, and turned into the kitchen to avoid getting a look at his dismal little apartment. Dark now, empty save himself. 

The leftover spaghetti was still tucked away in a Tupperware container on an otherwise empty shelf in the fridge. Eddie extracted it carefully, holding it in his hands for a moment to make it real, to confirm in his mind that Richie had been there, that they had spent a night in his kitchen bickering and cooking like nothing was ever wrong between the two of them, that Richie had made him dinner and it was good and they were okay and he’d  _ been _ there. 

There was a smiley face drawn on the lid, he noticed. In black Expo marker. Eddie had one with a magnet clipped to the door of the freezer. Richie had evidently found it and gotten creative while he was at work. 

Something surged in his chest as he stared down at it for a moment, the red plastic lid grinning back. He almost wished he’d drawn it in Sharpie. Then again, if he had, Eddie would have bitched about him ruining his Tupperware. But he’d be able to keep it. He’d have something to call him about to bitch over the phone.  _ So you’re drawing all over my shit now? Real mature, Tozier. This is fourth grade all over again, first my nice composition notebook, now my goddamn Tupperware?  _

Eddie loved it. He loved it so much he almost didn’t want to pop off the lid to stick the damn thing in the microwave to heat it up. But he was starving, and he did have to sit around and come to terms with the quiet again, so he bit the bullet and set the lid in the sink. Just careful enough.

The phone rang while Eddie’s leftovers rotated on the glass plate. 

Thoughtful, he looked up, blinking and taking a moment to realize he had to do something about that before padding over. Couldn’t be Richie, he knew Richie’s flight had already taken off and he would have had a voicemail had he called from the airport asking to be picked up if something had gone awry. Eddie did, despite himself, still sort of hope something minor went awry. He’d gotten an extra night last time, what was one more this go around? 

The number was familiar, but he’d never been great at memorizing. Eddie stared at the phone for a moment, numbness after all the excitement of the past few days slowing him down, but picked up just before it had a chance to go to voicemail. He didn’t even have time to say hello before a breathless voice rushed at him over the line. 

“Eddie?” 

He couldn’t recognize it from one word alone. He cleared his throat quietly, wedging the phone into the crook of his shoulder and wiping his hands on his pants. It sounded urgent. “Speaking?” 

“It’s Patty.”

Eddie perked up slightly, taking the phone in one hand. “Oh, hey Patty, is—”

“He did it.”

This worried him for a second. A little abrupt, obviously excited, but Eddie knew firsthand that excitable things could mean bad things. “He— who? Stan?” Was something wrong with Stan— “Stan did what—” 

Several details clicked into place just before Patty had a chance to say it herself. 

Yesterday was Valentine’s day. Patricia Blum was on the line, brimming and bubbling, Stan’s girlfriend, her longtime boyfriend Stan, one of Eddie’s best friends in the world, Stanley Uris, a secretly pathetically hopeless romantic who’d been waiting to—

“He  _ proposed _ , Eddie! We’re engaged!”

“You’re fucking  _ engaged? _ You’re engaged!” The microwave beeped and Eddie nearly shrieked, jumping out of his skin as a sudden surge of energy burst through his veins. “Holy shit, Patty, you— holy shit!” 

She laughed, she sounded so excited Eddie felt like he was going to tear up. “Holy shit!”

“Oh my god, that’s— congratulations! Where’s— is Stan there?” 

“No, I just got back from his place a little while ago, but I’m sure he’ll call you too in a little bit.”

Eddie pressed a hand to his forehead, beaming so hard his cheeks hurt. Stanley was engaged. He really did do it, huh? “Fuck— sorry.” Patty just laughed again. “God, that’s so great, Patty.” 

“I know. I know, I’m still trying to let it sink in.”

“He’s wanted this for a really long time,” Eddie said, balling his fingers in the sleeve of his sweater. He was worried he was going to get choked up about it if he thought on it too long. He just wanted to be excited for them, and Christ, was he ever. “He’s been crazy about you forever. Never shut up about you.”

“Sounds familiar.” 

“Huh?”

“Eddie,” Patty chortled, “I love you, thank you so much for picking up. I’m still bursting about it.” 

“Yeah, of course.” 

“I have a bunch of other calls to make, I kinda wish I could actually just shout from rooftops, but you’ll help out, won’t you?” 

Eddie felt a tiny little surge of pride light up his chest. “With the wedding?” 

“Yes, with the wedding. Would you mind? You’re good at that kind of stuff, I’d—”

“I’d love to, Patty.” He would. He would love to. Eddie, a man who had proposed once himself, had never been so excited about a wedding. “F-I’d love to.” 

“Okay, I’ll be in touch, I promise. I wanna free up your line so Stanley can call you himself soon, okay?” 

“I’m so happy for you, Patty,” Eddie said, and he was. He felt light— it was welcome in the vacuum left after Richie’s departure. Something else to look forward to. Looking forward felt good, for once. Looking forward wasn’t so scary right then.   
“I’m happy for me too.” Her smile shone through in her voice. “Take care, okay? I’ll call you.” 

“Looking forward to it." He nodded, if only to himself. "I promise.”


	28. THE CONSEQUENCE OF BEING EDDIE

**FRIDAY, 10 MARCH 2000**

**APPROXIMATELY SIX MILES ABOVE COLORADO**

**ACCORDING TO EDDIE’S WATCH: 11:37 PM EST**

**(ACCORDING TO RICHIE’S MICROWAVE: 8:37 PM PDT)**

Eddie dragged a clammy palm down his face, the cold airplane bathroom fluorescents making him look more dead than alive. 

He’d had to miss Richie’s birthday because he couldn’t afford to take off work. It had been on Tuesday. They were planning to go out together on Saturday night to properly celebrate, but he’d missed the actual date. Eddie had had to wait until the end of the week and catch a late flight. He’d needed the hours so he could make April rent. Had to make rent so he wouldn’t have to move back in with his mother. So his life could continue going forward. 

He’d had to miss Richie’s actual birthday for a job he, as of several hours ago, no longer had.

Eddie had been asked to resign at 3:45.  _ Asked to resign. _ He hadn’t been sure what that meant. He’d asked if he was being fired, and was told no, he was being  _ asked to resign. _ And if he didn’t resign, then he would be fired. And that didn’t look good on a resume. 

Which he would need to find another job. 

As he no longer had one. 

He was informed of these things in his boss’s office with the door open, having been told he didn’t need to close it when he crept in per the email regarding their afternoon “one-on-one meeting”, which felt oddly like an exercise in semi-public humiliation, and at three fucking forty five,  _ after _ he’d gotten all his work done for the day and was beyond stressed about leaving on time so he wouldn’t miss his flight. It felt borderline cruel. 

And at 3:52, Eddie had, per his boss’ recommendation, officially put in his two weeks, feeling numb and stupid and a little confused. At 3:53, had been told, as a final blow, 

_ Better make it one week, Kaspbrak. Thanks. Enjoy your weekend. _

So far, Eddie was not, in fact, enjoying his weekend. He’d been looking forward to this for weeks now. Richie’s birthday, seeing California for the first time, meeting some of his friends, seeing his place, wearing shorts and sneakers in early March,  _ seeing _ Richie after a month of only hearing his voice through the phone. But despite the fact that he was finally,  _ finally _ actually on his way, his mind continued to stray back to his khaki colored desk job. 

Eddie cupped his hands to rinse his face with the oddly cool tap water (which— where the fuck did it come from? How much water can you store on a plane? How clean is it? What happens if they run out? Was he taking away from a limited source of water because he couldn’t calm down for shit when he got like this and, in the process, taking water away from the poor saps who actually came back here to take a piss and needed to wash their hands? Did everyone wash their hands on a plane? It’s a flying tin can, everyone is touching everything all the time, they had to—) He shook his hands out, deciding he didn’t want that shit on his face. He felt sick, distracted, still had a fucking headache. Looking blankly at his reflection without seeing, Eddie dried his hands on a flimsy paper towel and kneaded at his right temple with two fingers.

His boss had waxed back and forth between something that sounded almost like pity and a starched corporate script. 

_ I’m not going to slander you, I get that you’re just a kid. We’ll keep this issue private. You’ve done good work here. But, unfortunately, we just don’t want you working at—  _ representing _ our company at this time. Don’t be afraid to put me down as a reference, although I recommend you keep this private down the road in your professional life. Sensitive issue. I’m sure you understand. _

He was trying to understand. But something refused to click into place. The wound was still fresh. 

_ You got fired, dipshit,  _ his tired brain kept reminding him, followed by, none too helpfully (and in his boss’s voice rather than his own)

_ No, asked to resign. _

A sick twist of embarrassment tangled Eddie’s guts. Asked to resign for getting in a fucking playground spat with his shit-for-brains coworkers earlier in the week. What he was doing wasn’t resigning. It was more like running away. Tail between legs. He dropped his gaze to stare into the shiny plastic basin of the sink. 

It wasn't a fight. Not officially. It was recognized officially by HR as a  _ disagreement.  _ Thinking about it made Eddie’s blood simmer under his skin. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting the fuzzy white imprints of the sterile lights in the room fade behind his eyelids.

He was trying desperately to learn how to compartmentalize (advice from Bev, who was qualified on account of “I saw a therapist once in high school for a couple weeks”), and he was going to need to put this into a box and hide it away in the back corners of his brain in order to actually enjoy his weekend. He could worry about facing his last week of work and impending unemployment when he got home; right now he needed to worry about the fact that he would be landing in LA in less than two hours. 

Eddie gulped. That too. He was landing in LA in less than two hours. Would be seeing Richie again in less than two hours. 

If he was careful, if he kept an eye on himself, he could keep this from getting out of hand. His stomach turned at the idea of Richie ever finding out— not just about Eddie, about how Eddie felt, in particular about him, but he couldn’t let himself worry that now. All he could do was play his cards correctly. Preventative medicine. School his thoughts. And, for the love of god, not get drunk around him. Things, as of late, were changing for Eddie a little too rapidly. 

He didn’t think he could stand it if things changed between him and Richie. If he thought differently about him, about them. He didn’t think he could stand it. He eyed the stack of air sickness bags on the counter warily. 

He blinked, clearing bleary eyes, and tried to focus on the man that was supposedly him in the dirty mirror. 

He looked like complete dogshit. 

He was too distracted and flighty when he got back from work to squeeze in a shower. Too fussy over packing, struggling to get a handle himself. Without the shower, without time to cool down and shake off the day, he felt downright stale. Gaunt, sweaty, exhausted. Dressed in frumpy layers he could peel off in case LA was hot even after the sun went down in early March, not quite believing it was as warm as he’d been told. His hair gel wasn’t doing shit now that it had been in his hair for well over 12 hours, leaving him looking like the runt of a litter of stray kittens left out in the rain. A particularly sad, rodent-like kitten, maybe. He looked too scrawny under his layers of hoodie and sweater and shirt. It was cold on the plane, this high in the atmosphere, but he felt oddly overheated. He blinked and the reflection blinked back. 

The sight of his own sallow face, when he finally came into focus, made a lump form in his throat. A tight coiled ball of self pity in his chest threatened to choke him up, so, tired of looking at himself, Eddie tore his eyes away and braced his hands on the sink. He tried to pull in a deep breath. The air in the plane felt oddly artificial, it scratched at his throat.

Not wanting to waste any more of their precious mystery plane water, Eddie pumped a dollop of hand sanitizer into his palm and slipped out of the bathroom without giving himself another look. Eyes on his shoes, Eddie followed the unlit strip of emergency lights on either side of the aisle as he slunk back to his cramped seat to huddle against the window, staring out into inky blackness without seeing. 

The last couple hours of the flight passed listlessly. After that long, dreary crawl through the clouds, being spat out into the busy airport was like being tossed into a pot of boiling water. 

He thought he’d been jittery waiting for Richie to get off the plane at Laguardia. That was nothing compared to navigating LAX by himself. People were still swarming the airport even at the late hour. As if Eddie didn’t already feel run ragged enough, he had to throw a few elbows to avoid getting swamped and smothered by the sheer throng of disgruntled passengers flowing out of the gates. Like raindrops on a windshield, Eddie had to duck his head and follow the surge of bodies through the airport, worrying distantly, oddly, about lemmings. 

He suddenly found himself outside, and outside smelled different. When the doors opened and spat him out into Los Angeles, the first thing Eddie did was wrinkle his nose so hard he made himself sneeze. 

Scrubbing the sleeve of his hoodie across his nose, Eddie tried to get a good look over the crowd, stomach too tight and head too hot. He reminded himself he was just getting picked up by a friend. There should be no pressure here. 

He yelped when someone checked into his shoulder. 

Maybe he was putting too much pressure on this. 

Eddie kept his eyes on his feet so as not to stumble as he crossed out to the curb, worried very suddenly about looking like an idiot in front of all these people. As if that mattered. He knew who specifically he was worried about, despite him being the person who most often seemed to look like a gigantic idiot in front of Eddie, but his anxiety apparently wanted to cling to the high it had been riding all week. 

When Eddie dared look back up, as if on cue, the sea of people parted to reveal Richie. Other passengers ducked their heads and clambered into their own rides, leaving a clear sight path to a dark haired boy with dirty sneakers perched on the curb. Eddie dug his heels in for only a moment, feeling people shuffle around behind him, jostling his backpack as they passed, but it was all he could do to just watch for a moment, almost steeling himself. 

Richie had his keys in his hands, toying idly with them, a frayed lanyard dangling limply from his wrist. It was pitch dark beyond the hazy glow of the airport lights, an inky backdrop against the pale blue of Richie’s shirt. His gaze cast a wide net over the other passengers, searching for Eddie as he rocked back and forth from the balls of his feet to his heels. The soles of his worn out sneakers pulled away from the canvas in spots when he went up on his toes, the rubber having given in from years of use. He looped a finger through one of the rings on his keychain and started to spin it around, jumping when someone swatted away the offending lanyard. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his shorts then, shoulders shooting up defensively as he barked an apology after them. Eddie watched him slowly relax, restlessly pulling the keys out again just for something to fiddle with. 

He was caught staring. Richie’s gaze suddenly locked onto him, brows lifted over the blocky rims of his glasses, his lopsided little grin instantly warming his expression. He went up on his toes once more as he lifted a hand to wave Eddie over, bouncing like a kid. 

“Hey, there he is!” 

Something warm and welcome washed Eddie over, something that, accompanied perhaps with his sheer exhaustion, overrided the nerves for even just a second.

He really did love the sound of his voice in person. 

Eddie rushed him, too relieved to play it cool. Alerted by the clatter of suitcase wheels and the jingling of backpack zippers, Richie planted his feet back solidly on the ground seconds before Eddie crashed into him to absorb the impact, but Eddie still managed to knock him back a little skitter-step anyway. It was embarrassing, suddenly, how fast a rush of giddiness swamped him when Richie clapped his arms around his back, settling over the top of his backpack and pulling him in. He clung to him for as long as he dared, just long enough to press his ear to the solid center of his chest. Each steady thump of Richie’s heartbeat against his cheek beat a solid truth into his brain. 

_ I’mfucked. I’mfucked. I’mfucked.  _

Richie laughed casually as Eddie finally stepped back, self consciously yanking down the hem of his rumpled hoodie. 

“I personally love the enthusiasm, but you do know you’re still just here to see me, right?” 

Eddie’s cheeks already hurt from trying desperately not to beam at him.  _ Cool, Kaspbrak. Cool. _ His traitor mouth twitched. “Yeah, I’m aware.” He stuck his hands, clammy already from the pressing heat, from otherwise, into his pockets to keep them to himself. “I wouldn’t have hauled my ass all the way out here otherwise.” 

Richie was insanely proud of his shitty convertible. Eddie told him he thought the car was really cool (when, in fact, it was a 1993 Geo Metro two seater convertible. In gray. It was anything but cool). Richie believed him, and seemed utterly pleased about the review, and that was what counted. He beamed like early Spring sunshine when Eddie gave him the green light to ride with the top down on the way home. After the cramped cabin of the stuffy plane, Eddie figured he could withstand some buffering from the wind. Richie’s excitement over the whole event made it worth trying to tamp down his hair every thirty seconds. 

The freeway arched and twisted high above itself, black in the sinking darkness of night, lit in stark yellow patches at streetlight intervals. Shadows of palm trees rose like fuzzy headed ghosts on either side of them, their silhouettes bleeding like ink into the dark sky. Eddie wasn’t even truly sure if they were real. It was dreamlike, blasting through the cool night with the radio blaring, Richie by his side, stark expressionist shadows catching on the planes of his face under the little starbursts of streetlight. Too exhausted to talk much, Eddie let Richie yammer over the roar of the wind and the radio. His eyes crinkled whenever he smiled or scrunched his nose. 

_ He’s going to have crow’s feet when he’s older, _ Eddie thought distantly, tiredly, a smile touching just his own face.  _ Laugh lines.  _

His expression started to fall the more he thought about it. Even if (god willing) they stayed friends for the rest of their lives, he wasn’t going to grow old with Richie. Just alongside him. Had to check himself on that: he had to be satisfied with that much.

Eddie nodded to himself, resolute as he could be. He could be satisfied with that much. 

“This is where the magic happens,” Richie announced, Eddie’s backpack slung stubbornly over his arm despite Eddie insisting that he could handle his measly two bags. Eddie crept inside behind him, tired eyes only managing a quick sweep before a heavy blink blurred his vision.

Richie’s modest apartment glowed warmly in the coolness that settled once the sun had fully sank below the horizon. Eager as he was to finally see the place, Richie’s place, he really wanted to fall face first into bed.

Couch. 

He was taking the couch, despite Richie offering to do so. They’d bickered about it over the phone a week prior. 

_ “I’ve passed out on that couch so many times now, there’s probably a perfect mold of my body I can just sink into by now. Comfortable as all hell. No trouble at all.”  _

_ “If it’s so comfortable then shouldn’t you be offering it to your guest? I don’t need the whole bed, it’s fine. I made you sleep on the couch at my place.”  _

_ “Your couch  _ is _ the bed at your place.”  _

_ “My  _ old _ place, idiot. The couch there. You slept on the couch for almost a week.” _

Loathe as he was to admit it, Eddie had grinned through the whole conversion. Had blushed a little, maybe, just at the idea of ending up in Richie’s bed for a change. Finding out what color his sheets were. What his pillowcases smelled like.

_ (Having sexual feelings for our f—) _

_ Shake it off.  _

So Eddie had insisted on taking the couch. 

After a very condensed tour during which Richie pointed out the bathroom (next to the bedroom) and the kitchen (next to the bathroom, the place was by no means gigantic), Eddie finally dropped his suitcase and collapsed into the lumpy couch cushions. 

“Magic?” he threw an arm over his forehead, realizing he could feel his pulse steady in his wrists. “What magic? Getting drunk by yourself on a Tuesday night?” He started to shuck off layers, the warmth of the little apartment sinking into his skin. 

Richie sucked his teeth, tipping his head to one side as he set down Eddie’s backpack and settled almost daintily on the cushion next to him. Eddie tried not to focus on the feeling of his weight sinking in beside him. “You still manage to be scathing even when you’re this exhausted, huh?” 

Eddie yawned, and Richie prodded at his side, nearly making him choke on a laugh. “I’m even meaner when I’m tired, don’t get me started.” He swatted halfheartedly at Richie’s offending hand and sank further down, blinking at the little TV settled haphazardly on a standing tray to focus on something besides their proximity. VHS tapes littered the floor with no apparent rhyme or reason, stacks and towers of them beside the little table. A joystick was discarded to one side, other odds-and-ends wires crammed behind a gaming system. Posters Eddie was too tired to discern in the dim lighting were plastered behind the television, not quite taking enough space on the otherwise bare wall to mask the empty apartment feeling. A few books and comics were stuffed beneath the coffee table as if Richie had made a quick hairbrained attempt to tidy up before Eddie arrived. 

Fondness surged up in Eddie’s chest. He took a breath, grounded in the easy silence that fell over the two of them on the couch. He could see Richie picking at a thumbnail idly out of the corner of his eye, fidgety. Nervous, waiting for the review. Eddie had nothing to say: this was Richie’s place. It felt like Richie’s place. It felt grounding and safe, a destination after a too long journey. 

“You need a goddamn bookshelf,” Eddie yawned, not keen on betraying sentiment too soon. 

“What am I, thirty? You should be proud of me for having a bed frame.” 

Eddie had not yet seen Richie’s bedroom. He decided immediately that that should wait until daylight. “Good to know your bar for functioning adulthood is in the fucking basement and you still manage to trip over it.” 

“I wouldn’t get too high and mighty about furniture. You’re the one sleeping on a futon.” 

Eddie turned a narrow glance toward him. Richie, bright eyed and unabashed, looked exactly how he used to on Friday nights long passed, sleepovers after a long hard week of middle school. Eternally the one who wanted to stay up late and watch movies and read comics and run amok in Stan’s basement, dispute how heavy the eyelids of his friends had grown. He slung an arm over the back of the couch and Eddie jerkily sat forward, covering his mouth when he yawned again. Richie’s face only dropped incrementally. He wet his lips, Eddie eying him out of the narrow corner of his vision.

“I should probably leave you to it,” Richie mumbled, seeming almost cowed. His arm was persistently tense on the back of the couch. “Need your beauty sleep?” 

“No, I need sleep to keep up with you this weekend, fucker,” Eddie muttered, wanting to ruffle or pluck or prod Richie somewhere but unsure of where. Hair or sleeve or ribs, or something, or— 

_ Watch it.  _

he really did need to go to bed. 

He let his hand drop to the space on the cushion between them, palm down, too much of a coward to so much as pat Richie’s knee. He blinked up at him, sitting back carefully so as not to accidentally fit his shoulders under the broad sweep of Richie’s arm. He had to angle his spine awkwardly, his voice straining slightly. “We can catch up tomorrow?” 

“Sure.” Richie, seemingly fighting some urge of his own, semi-awkwardly patted Eddie on the head. “Just don’t snack after midnight, Mogwai.” 

He couldn’t help rolling his eyes, fighting a weird shiver in his spine. “You make approximately zero sense exactly one hundred precent of the time.”

Richie sighed, voice heavy. “I love it when you talk statistics to me.”

Color rushed into Eddie’s face in a way he couldn’t fight. He scolded himself on the sheer ridiculousness of that. “That’s not  _ statistics, _ you’re just an idiot.” 

Richie snapped his fingers, pointing an accusing finger gun. “I know you’ve seen that movie. I’m pretty sure we’ve watched that movie together at some point. If I remember correctly, you fell asleep on me during that movie—” 

Eddie picked up the lumpy pillow on the couch by a corner and cocked his arm back threateningly as Richie stood up. Richie lifted his hands and a knee in defense, his smile visible behind the shield of his palms. 

“Christ, bedtime, okay.” He snagged a sloppily folded quilt from the sagging armchair behind him and tossed it gently to Eddie. “Here. Do the rest of the amenities satisfy your needs for your stay at Casa del Tozier?”

Abandoning the attack, Eddie propped the pillow up against one arm of the couch and bent to untie his sneakers. He placed them carefully next to his backpack and wondered stupidly where Richie kept his shoes. How they’d look lined up next to his by the door. His brain was buzzing on a low frequency, the question of wether or not it would be a stupid idea to cave and share the bed with him nagging at the back of his mind. 

_ Bad bad bad bad idea. Terrible idea. Stop crossing lines, idiot.  _

“Yeah, I think I’m covered. I’m sorry I’m tapping out so early.” 

“No worries.” Richie nodded, almost stalling. Standing there. It was making Eddie feel sweaty. “Jet lag and time zones and— yeah. You’re good. We’ve got all weekend.” 

Eddie pulled his suitcase up onto the couch with him and picked through it for pajamas. Richie stood there awkwardly for a moment more, rocking once again on his sneakers, gnawing on his cheek. He pointed loosely. 

“Bathroom’s right there.” 

Eddie bundled up a t-shirt and sweatpants in his arms. “Okay.”

“I’ll leave my door cracked if you need anything.”

Eddie nodded, swallowing down several thoughts that rushed at him at once. “Okay.” 

“Okay.” Richie’s mouth twitched once more into a soft smile. He seemed to look Eddie over for just a second, sizing him up. Placing him in the space. The same thing Eddie had had to do when Richie first crossed his threshold back in January. It made something swoop in Eddie’s gut. “Rest up, we have a big day tomorrow.” 

“You too. I mean sleep tight— sleep good.” 

Richie retreated toward his room with a nod and the dorkiest little wave, and Eddie watched him go, TV static humming in his fingers as he resolutely stood with his clothes to go change. Once Richie was out of sight, door cracked as promised (Christ), he ducked into the bathroom, forcing himself not to snoop through Richie’s things. Only a few items littered the tiny sink: deodorant, toothbrush and toothpaste, a black plastic comb with a couple missing or broken teeth, hand soap. His shower curtain was a fairly basic solid blue, the light above the mirror ambient and dim. The reflection in Richie’s mirror was a little more merciful than the one on the airplane, showing a man riddled, finally, with more relief than worry. At least he’d gotten some color back. 

_ One way or another, fa— _

He squeezed his eyes shut to shut out the thought. 

Washing his face made him feel a little better. Refreshed, casting off the week. 

Left alone in the quiet of the apartment, Eddie was worried he’d work himself back up into a nervous tisy about any number of things he’d been running himself ragged about on the plane ride. Yet he remained oddly calm once he felt clean, returning quietly to the couch and scanning distantly through some of the titles on the exposed spines of books and VHS cases, picking out little undeniable hints of Richie’s personality among his cluttered things. The apartment was comfortable, an open kitchen window sweeping in a cool breeze and carrying with it a song like cicadas and the occasional brush of tires on pavement down the street. His eyes were impossibly heavy within minutes, and with the familiar-smelling quilt clutched around his shoulders, Eddie was finally comfortable (or exhausted) enough not to fight it.

As he passed through the thin veil between consciousness and sleep, lingering discomfort crawled like centipedes up his spine. He could still feel the itchy starched button down stuck to his back with sweat, the way the collar seemed to constrict around his neck until it was harder and harder to breathe. The voice from that seemingly distant Wednesday that had raised hairs on the back of his neck returned in half formed dreams, dull nails picking at the shame and worry he hadn’t yet had the room to process. 

_ Heard you finally shaved the beard, Kaspbrak? Crying shame, really,  _ the voice repeated in a nagging echo.  _ Poor girl didn’t see that coming, did she? I could have guessed as much.  _

_ Crying shame, really.  _

**SATURDAY: 9:34 AM**

Richie jolted himself awake, disoriented for a solid ten seconds.

His ceiling fan spun lazily high above him, uninterrupted by the sudden movement. Richie blinked, following one blade around with his eyes until he was dizzy and his arms felt like they belonged to his body again. His head lolled to one side, the red numbers on his alarm clock persistent that it was too damn early to be awake on a Saturday. 

He remembered Eddie. 

Richie sat upright. Eddie was in his living room. 

It was different when Bill had come around the first time, but of course it was. It was Bill, first of all, and the last apartment Richie had lived in had hardly been  _ his _ place, it was more just a temporary space for him to live in while he got his feet properly under him. This was Eddie, and this was decisively Richie’s place. Without question or excuse.

Like the first kid awake the morning after a sleepover, Richie crept carefully out of bed, knowing even if he laid back down he wouldn’t get a wink more of sleep. He padded out into the living room, idling in the doorframe, eyes drifting to the back of his couch, feeling oddly new and out of place. 

Breakfast. He could do breakfast for him. That would be nice. Pull himself together and be a gracious host. Breakfast. 

Judging by the soft sounds of his breathing, Eddie was still fast asleep. Probably exhausted from the trip. Richie made a conscious effort not to peek over the back of the couch at him as he slipped past into the kitchen. He knew he’d be hard pressed not to feel some type of way about seeing him curled up in his blanket on his couch in his apartment, dark hair frizzy and displaced around the crown of his head, sleepy face slack. Richie would have time to quietly fawn over him later. He’d bought eggs and avocados for this and he wasn’t about to let them go bad.

Curbing the weird out-of-place out-of-body feeling was easier when his hands were occupied. The image of Eddie rushing headlong into his arms outside the airport was going to haunt him, maybe, but he could stand to concentrate on not burning his eggs for the time being and worry about that later. He had to last the weekend without making a fool of himself. 

He was dead set on making this a good experience. 

The scream that rose from the living room was cause for worry about the possibility of that. Richie swore and dropped an egg on the floor, hearing a thump, yelp, and skitter— and a much harder, much more painful sounding thud. 

Ziggy streaked past Richie before he had even a second to assess the situation, making a beeline for the kitchen counter so he could catapult himself out of the open window to the safety. He chirped as he slid through the slick mess of the eggwhite on the floor and clambered clumsily onto the counter, ringed tail a blur as he dashed outside and disappeared in a whirlwind of grey and white.

Eddie’s fuzzy head (there he is) snapped up from behind the couch, eyes wild. His hair was sticking straight up on one side, curled at the temple with sweat. He sputtered, shaking himself off and searching frantically around the apartment with a half frightened glint in his eye. “There was a f— it looked like a fucking raccoon that thing was  _ huge—” _

His voice was hoarse and strained. Richie had to swallow down sudden laughter and bursting affection like a pill, a grin aching in his cheeks. “That would be a cat, actually,” Richie stated as flatly as he could. Then, a little more tittering, unable to help himself: “Did you fall off the fucking couch?” 

Eddie’s face was glowing with an early morning flush. Richie knew he slept warm. Must be it. “You have a  _ cat?”  _ This seemed to shock Eddie in the most endearing way. “Since when do you have a cat?” 

He totally fell off the couch. 

Richie sighed and turned his face away, wetting a dish towel and bending down to assess the egg situation on the tile. Ziggy had stepped directly in the yolk. Scrambled. “Since I stopped caring whether anything I set down on a flat surface would stay there for more than an hour at a time,” he muttered, wiping up the mess and tossing the towel into the sink without fanfare. Eddie was still staring at him, eyes wide, as he wiped his hands on his sweatpants. Richie swallowed and ducked into the fridge to grab another egg. “He just started following me home and hanging out on the back steps, so I just let him inside at some point. That’s just how cats happen, one of my mom’s coworkers found Eleanor in a ditch when she was a kitten.” 

Eddie just blinked at him. After the initial shock, he looked sort of drowsy. “Are you sure that’s a  _ cat?”  _

“So far as I know. He hasn’t given me rabies yet, at least. His name is Ziggy,” Richie added helpfully. He held up an egg between his pointer finger and his thumb. “I’m makin’ eggs,” he said, feigning casuality. As if he hadn’t been thinking about this for weeks. 

Eddie squinted at him from across the room. “Eggs?” 

Richie caved and grinned. “You know, from chickens? Shell on the outside, goop on the inside? Maybe you’re iffy on cats, but surely you’ve heard of eggs.”

Eddie’s expression soured. Richie could only internally marvel at how such a sweet face could look so stern and mean. There was something hilarious about it that made him feel almost giddy. “Motherfucker, you know what I— whatever.” Eddie kneaded at one of his temples, clambering back onto the couch and resting an elbow over the back of it. “Yes, I will take some eggs.” He shifted his back and Richie heard it pop from where he was standing, feeling immediately bad (again) about Eddie sleeping on the couch. “Can I help?” 

“Nope, you’re the guest.” And Richie sort of had to do something to keep himself occupied immediately or he felt like he was going to pace. Especially when Eddie tiredly got to his feet and padded around the couch, dressed in a very old t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that pooled at his ankles, scrubbing at an eye with the heel of his hand. 

Richie could just see the ridge of one of his collar bones beside the stretched out neck of his shirt. He cocked his head almost sweetly and Richie sort of clattered around in his cabinet for spices. 

“You sure? You cooked for me l—” 

Richie held up a hand, still not looking.  _ “Guest, _ Eddie.”

Waffling, Eddie shifted his weight back and forth between his bare feet in the corner of Richie’s vision. 

_ He’s in your apartment,  _ Richie reminded himself, trying not to be too excited about it.  _ He’s actually here.  _

Eddie scratched at his arm. “Okay, could I use your shower in that case?”

Richie scoffed, cracking a fresh egg into the hot pan. The sizzle ticked at his ears. “My shower? Fuck no.” 

“What?” Eddie sounded entirely too hurt and genuine about it, it would have stung if it wasn’t so earnest and cute. “I—”

“Eddie,” Richie sighed, allowing himself one fond look at him over his shoulder. Soft clothes. Bleary eyes. The ruffled hair. God. “I’m busting your chops, of course you can use the fucking shower. It’s just funny that you asked.” He nodded toward the bathroom. “Have at it.”

“Oh.” 

_ Oh.  _ Richie shook his head, barely resisting mimicking his stupid little voice. _ Oh. _ “Go ‘head, numbnuts. Wash the plane gunk off of you.”

Eddie went, nose wrinkled in slight disgust, and Richie broke into the most idiotic smile at his frying pan. 

Ziggy, whom Eddie was genuinely not entirely sure was actually a cat and not rabid California wildlife that poor, half-blind Richie had welcomed into his home, failed to make a reappearance during breakfast. That left Richie and Eddie alone in the apartment, something Eddie felt overly conscious about for no (a very) particular reason. 

“So, where do you want to begin the grand tour?” Richie asked over his omelette. 

Eddie was still hung up on the fact that this man could cook. Richie Tozier did not look even semi-competent with a spatula. He looked down at his plate, blinking at the fresh green slices of avocado next to his own omelette. The thing was fucking beautiful. He almost didn’t want to stab his fork into it and mar the image. 

The image, when Eddie lifted shy eyes from his plate, also included Richie in soft cotton shorts and a faded pilling t-shirt across from him at the reedy little kitchen table, washed in golden streamers of morning sunlight, hunched over a big plate of good breakfast. Eddie almost wondered if he was still asleep. These colors were too saturated for real life. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever had avocado,” he muttered intelligently, prodding it with his fork. 

Richie shoveled a slightly too-big forkful into his mouth and lifted a shoulder. “Yeah you have, you’ve had guacamole.”

Eddie shook his head. While he didn’t want to voice it at risk of being made fun of, the color and texture were just— sort of off putting. He was fine with salsa. He allowed himself to get hung up on it for a split second before deciding it was stupid to get hung up on and shaking his head again, a little more lightly. 

Richie lowered his fork in disbelief, shoulders sinking down. His hair was getting long again, dark wisps of it flipping out under his ears and curling around his jaw. Eddie shifted in his chair. “Fuck, I’m gonna have to fix that too, we’ll have to go out for Mexican. There’s a taco stand Ned used to take me to on the beach.”

He had to still be asleep. He felt weirdly asleep. His head felt fuzzy, face hot. Eddie quietly picked at the hem of his shorts under the table, glad his damp hair was keeping him semi-cool. “I— yeah, I did wanna see the beach.” He’d thought about the beach. 

“I was all about the Hollywood sign when I got here,” Richie said. He sounded weirdly distracted. Eddie tried desperately not to worry about it. Richie shoveled another bite into his mouth, continuing. “It’s huge, but it looks smaller than you’d think from a distance.” When Eddie didn’t say anything else, Richie waved his fork at him. “It doesn’t bite, it’s good. Put a chunk of it on your fork with your eggs, I promise.” Richie demonstrated just that for him, slicing into the violently green slab of avocado, then the pleasantly yellow mass of his omelette and lifting the fork to his mouth. He hummed, kissed his fingers. He noticed Eddie staring a moment later and swallowed, reaching for his cup of orange juice, grinning at him when he set it back down. Something about his smile was so bashful Eddie had to look away, a lump in his throat. 

Eddie discovered that morning that avocados, despite his initial qualms, were heaven on an omelette. Just like Richie said.

He was going to have to figure out where the fuck to get avocados in New York. He had no idea when the fuck they were in season and had never paid attention to them when buying groceries, but he was sure as fuck going to start. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wanted to simply dispatch Richie for his groceries again under the excuse that Eddie couldn’t find them himself. Couldn’t tell whether they were ripe, it would be easier for Richie to just swing by and grab them. That would, of course, involve Richie coming back to New York with semi-regular frequency so Eddie wasn’t left in the apartment with no groceries, but Eddie couldn’t bring himself to mind. There were only a few selective ways he would allow himself to be cared for, but he figured that one he could stand. 

Eddie made another wonderful discovery that morning as Richie drove him out toward the coast: there were seagulls in California. 

Just like there were seagulls in Maine.

Admittedly, the scene back home was considerably less picturesque. On days when the others were busy, Eddie faintly remembered himself pedaling idly around town to visit a few of his favorite landmarks. The church down the road, the railroad tracks, the reeking banks of the river, the dump. Just to see the seagulls, of course, the reeking piles of trash had little appeal to him. 

Derry was nowhere near the rocky coasts of Maine. Eddie always marveled at seeing seagulls that far inland, wondering why they chose, of all places in the wide world, to circle the landfill just outside of town. They were stunning nonetheless: white and sleek, swooping in lazy ovals against the clear blue backdrop of a warm summer sky, so breathtakingly beautiful to him that he could almost ignore the smell. 

And here they were again, this time banking on sea breezes above a sparkling blue stretch of an actual ocean. It jolted some strange pocket of emotion deep in his chest, heart full from the mere beauty of the scene.

The beach itself was somewhat less picturesque, considering the sheer amount of people. It was loud and hot and crowded, the air pulsing with music from guitars and boomboxes and the occasional food stand, a confusion of sound and color. It was like a rainbow lens flare on a picture but everywhere, overwhelming the entire composition. 

Richie navigated it easily, looking graceless and uncaring as he clambered over the sandy sidewalks and pier, steadily clumsy padding through the dunes. There weren’t many landmarks and Eddie didn’t really want to stray too far into the thick of the crowds, so there was a lot of open space to look. A lot of open air to speak. Eddie very silently admired Richie as he chatted on about anything and everything. Sweat shimmered on the back of his neck, the collar of his t-shirt flipped awkwardly to reveal the tag. Eddie’s fingers itched to tuck it back into his shirt, to let the pads of his fingers slide over the upper knots of his spine. Richie lifted a blocky hand to the base of his skull and carded through his hair, fingers gangly, fingernails short and blunt and square. His wrists were still skinny as if he hadn’t quite grown into the full length of his arms. Eddie visually traced the yoke of his shoulders, minding the way the seams of his sleeves hit him too high, the way the fabric strained slightly when he swung his arms. His tongue felt dry and thick in his mouth, throat tight as Richie cast an expectant little glance over his shoulder at him. Blue eyes, lopsided smile, an earnest tilt to his eyebrows. 

_ You want him in a way you just can’t have him.  _

He was just going to have to get used to that feeling. Butterflies in his stomach he had to wrangle together and pin to a board before they could ever see blue sky.

It stung. Butterflies turned to wasps. Eddie had this terrible sinking feeling that he was going to feel like this for the rest of his life. He couldn’t quite pin down what  _ this _ was, what nagging notion which was tapping like sharp fingernails rapping on a chalkboard at the back of his mind was, but it felt quietly miserable. He didn’t want to be miserable. He was tired of being miserable. He wanted to have a good day at the beach. He wanted to spend time with his best friend without feeling like he was falling into misery, and that it was somehow his fault. 

“—if you wanted to, we don’t have to.” 

Eddie nearly startled when he realized Richie had been addressing him. “Oh— what?” 

“The taco stand I was talking about earlier? It’s right up here. I dunno if you’re avocadoed out or want to take the next step of venturing into the world of guacamole this soon, but the option is there.” 

“Uh— yes, yeah, that sounds good.” Eddie physically shook his head as if that would clear things up for him, knowing his face was hot, that conflicting storm clouds had rolled over his expression momentarily. 

Richie stuck his hands in the pockets of his stupid board shorts, posture loose and lackadaisical. He cocked his head slightly as he looked Eddie over. “The heat getting to you, Spaghetti Man? You’re being openly weirder than usual.” 

“Let’s just get tacos, c’mon. And water.” 

They got tacos and water. It was a cheap lunch, but Eddie bellyached about Richie paying for him. But Eddie couldn’t avoid thinking about the inevitable. He’d gotten fired. His head grew tight and his nerves fired too hard every time he even thought about money, his savings, how much he’d brought with him for this trip and how much he was going to ration, but he still managed to feel guilty when Richie footed the bill. 

Richie started explaining his plan for that night to Eddie, listing off the names of friends who may or may not be there. It wasn’t a big deal, he insisted. Not really his birthday party specifically, he was apparently “too old” for that. Just an excuse to get some people together and have a couple drinks. Low pressure. Eddie need not fret about it. 

If only Eddie were capable of not fretting about it. Several worries were nagging at the back of his head, but he was putting a great amount of effort toward forgetting them and enjoying the moments flitting by him here, now. Being consciously un-miserable. 

Richie sitting across from him here, now. He seemed to talk himself out after a while, the brief ramble settling his apparent nerves (he seemed endearingly nervous about Eddie meeting his friends) and allowing him a few pensive bites of his burrito in comfortable silence. Eddie allowed himself a few bites as well. Taco with guac. 

A recommendation from a dear friend. 

It tasted so goddamn good it was almost unfair. 

“It’s kind of fucking nuts here, Rich,” he said after a beat, pulling Richie’s gaze back up to him. 

He smiled. Eddie had always thought it was funny that he had such straight white teeth and such a crooked little grin. Eddie worried for a second that he was being too vague, the statement pulled out of him unwillingly, but Richie seemed to understand instantly. 

“It kinda is, isn’t it?”

Eddie nodded. Cars of all colors whizzed by them, streaks of ink and sunlight. There was more to see here besides Richie, he reminded himself, and he forced himself to look around. The tin taco stand looked unbearably hot inside, but box fans and an open back door allowed for air flow, making the whole block of sidewalk smell richly of seasoned meat and peppers. Eddie had to remind himself how close they were to Mexico, how all that produce was in season all year long here, how fresh it all was. The palm trees rustled pleasantly in a breeze, tall scrawny giants with their ridiculous clusters of fronds swaying blissfully too high in the air. Like they could pierce the clouds if there were any clouds to pierce. He really sort of liked them. They were oddly charming, out of place looking, too tropical for a place people just lived and went about their daily business. Actual fucking honest to god palm trees. Uncanny. 

“They look straight out of a Dr. Suess book,” he muttered, not really meaning to voice it aloud. 

Richie looked at him funny. Despite the heat already kissing his skin, Eddie felt his face warm. 

“The palm trees?” 

Eddie nodded, feeling a little stupid for saying it. 

Richie only beamed, tipping his head back and rocking back on his bench to stare up at them. The diamond of his adams apple, peppered with stubble, jutted out awkwardly and made his voice sound scratchy. “Oh, yeah, they’re unreal, right?” 

Eddie swallowed a little too hard. “Do they grow coconuts?” 

God, would it kill him to say one intelligent thing and not sound like a kindergartener? 

Richie’s face fell slightly, thinking. Eddie wished suddenly that he could see the way his eyebrows sank down and cinched like they did, but the angle was too extreme. Richie tipped his head back forward and shook it, a thin lock of hair falling forward over his brow and skating over one lens of his glasses. “I actually don’t think so. That’s just in cartoons.” 

At least Richie was almost as much of a buffoon. Eddie wrinkled his nose. “Coconuts are definitely _ real, _ dipshit. I’m just asking if they grow here.”

“Says the guy who, just today, discovered cats, eggs,  _ and _ guac.” Richie lurched forward and tapped his finger on the very tip of Eddie’s nose, shooting a little bolt all the way down into his toes. “We’d have to go to Florida to see coconuts, I think. That’s a Mike question.”

Eddie snipped back at him, perhaps a touch defensive once Richie actually returned to that familiarity and made physical contact. But it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t _ miserable.  _ They laughed a little, in fact, after that, and it was anything but. Eddie had to school his looks to make sure he wasn’t revealing  _ too _ too much fondness, had to make sure he wouldn’t laugh hard enough to snort, but he could do it. 

Eddie was going through growing pains, he thought. Something that, as a kid, were easy to mistake for sheer misery when they got bad enough. He thought, as he and Richie settled back in and finished their lunch in the sunshine, that he could stand to be uncomfortable for a little while. As long as he wasn’t miserable. Bev had even mentioned that: now that things were different and he was aware of them

_ Fuck, he was so goddamn  _ aware _ of it all the fucking time now, FUCK  _

things were going to be different. Uncomfortable. But they didn’t  _ have _ to be miserable. 

He just had to be strict with himself about it.

What had Eddie learned from growing up if not how to deal with strictness? 

_ “So, it’s this bar,” _ Richie had mentioned at lunch. _ “It’s touristy, but it’s not really a tourist spot anymore. We kinda took it over. In a good way.”  _

It was very touristy. There was a fucking fake shark head mounted above the main entrance. It was wearing a goddamn lei. And the bar was, in fact, very crowded, by, apparently, locals their age. The cheesy little margarita and cactus lights strung above the bar were admittedly charming, though. Something Eddie could see Richie being fond of, a draw for him, a reason he liked this place so much. Eddie did greatly appreciate the license plates nailed high up on the walls like a border to the ceiling. Even spotted an old Maine plate as he scanned the place, trying to adjust to the atmosphere and deep-end-of-the-pool feeling of meeting this many new people after spending all day alone with Richie catching up. 

Eddie, determined to keep up, ran through the list again. 

_ Randy’s the redhead with the glasses. Ned’s short with the dark hair. Javier’s in the black t-shirt and brought a cake, which was sweet. Todd, in his forties or fifties with the salt and pepper beard, is the owner of the bar, currently bartending. Steve had yet to arrive, but that was Richie’s manager, Richie said he’d introduce him when he showed up. Drew is the one in the striped shirt. Nadia has the bangs and all the rings on her fingers, another bartender. Stella’s the blonde, and would apparently sit Eddie down and read his palms if he asked, which he politely did not want anything to do with.  _

Something about repeating the names over and over again in his head eased Eddie’s anxiety, gaze flitting around between Richie’s friends. There were a lot of them. When he and Richie had first arrived, the bar had burst into a fresh wave of sound, bells of little whoops and cheers of Richie’s name and cheerful happy birthdays sounding in a chorus. They immediately swept Richie up, showering him with hugs and hair ruffles and claps on the shoulders, pulling him into their ranks. Eddie was nearly left behind at the door, feeling a little queasy already, but Richie returned in an instant, pulling him in against his side. The announcement was made: “This is Eddie!” and Eddie nearly melted against Richie under the immediate warmth of the reception. 

Richie must have at least talked about him with these people. Mentioned him even in passing. If that didn’t make him shaky in the knees.  _ This is Eddie! _ Wow. 

Richie’s friends were all kinds of curious about him and all kinds of generous, offering to buy his drinks (making his nerves ping once again) and give up their barstools so he could have a seat among them. He was a little overwhelmed, admittedly, but Richie stuck close by his side at the start and gave him enough time to warm up. He couldn’t help but think back to the party at Julie’s so long ago, of Richie blending in seamlessly with Eddie’s group there, how much they’d liked him, asked about him afterward. Eddie could only hope he would make it through the night without some stupid blunder in front of Richie’s friends.

They were a colorful group, all kinds of talkative and outgoing, and Eddie was hard pressed to keep up. Questions came and went about New York, his job (a subject he quickly shrugged off), if he’d really known Richie as long as he did (yes he  _ had _ ), and, oddly, at one point, what snow was like. 

“Javier is the only idiot in LA I know who was actually born here and didn’t get sick enough of it to move out once he graduated high school,” Richie explained. 

Javier lifted his shoulders, an easy grin coming to his face. He was handsome in an oddly relaxed sort of way, lanky and charming in his own right. “And like I’ve told Richie a million times before, I think they make that shit up in Hollywood. I’ve got a friend of a friend on an SFX team, he showed me the powdery stuff they use and everything. It’s movie magic.” 

Richie shook his head, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. “Javier’s a shit, don’t listen to him.” 

_ “Sandy used to work here,” _ Richie had also mentioned at lunch.  _ “She sort of got me started on stage at this place.”  _

Eddie was trying not to be hyperconscious of this. Eddie tried, very hard, in fact, not to think too much about Sandy. It really wasn’t exactly jealousy, but it was a particularly prickly feeling that felt some kind of ugly. He’d never meet her, which felt strange. Eddie knew very little about her, only that Bill had met her sort of in passing once, and that, according to Richie

_ (“Sandy.”  _

_ “Do you love Sandy?”  _

_ “I think I do, yeah. A little bit. She broke my heart.”) _

she’d been pretty important to him for a long time. He’d had to take a lot of time to recover from the blow. Was maybe still working on it, Eddie didn’t know, hadn’t asked. She was also, apparently, living and working in Seattle now, and Richie, for all intents and purposes, did seem better. He’d mentioned her here and there in New York (which made Eddie feel prickly then promptly guilty about being prickly,) but Eddie could tell when something was really weighing on Richie. 

And he seemed light tonight. Airy, happy. It was unbearably good to see. 

_ “It actually took me a while to go back there after we broke up, but it’s— things are different now.” _ Richie had said that with a little smile, and Eddie had felt a weird sense of pride.  _ “Looking up, you know? Shit happens, it’s okay. It’s fine. It’s a cool bar, they’re good people.”  _

Once the initial deluge of introductory questions was over, Eddie settled in quietly with his first drink and tried not to be intrusive. One of Richie’s friends had insisted on getting him something, and begrudgingly accepted a margarita from Nadia. He quietly hung around as Richie caught up with a few people he hadn’t seen in a while, chipper and friendly, drink in his hand. 

“I invited Boris,” Richie mentioned to Randy. “No show, apparently.”

Eddie worried for a moment: Richie hadn’t mentioned a Boris. Was Boris important? 

Randy snickered and Richie’s face broke into a soft smile. “What, he didn’t want to show face at some weird random kid’s birthday party at a shoddy tourist bar on the opposite side of town? Shame.” Randy shook his head. 

Richie clapped Randy on the arm. 

_ Randy was one of his roommates,  _ Eddie repeated to himself, determined to get it right.  _ One of the first people he met here.  _

“Boris has seen me at my absolute worst, I mean the  _ pits, _ Randall, I think we share a deeper connection than me just existing as some random kid in his mind,” Richie went on. 

“Some _ weird _ random kid.” 

“Maybe weird kid—”

“Definitely weird kid.” 

Richie laughed. “Okay, weird kid, but not random. I’m there too fucking often to be random, I’m regular.” 

Boris seemed to be an aquaintance at best, maybe part of an inside joke. Eddie tried to calm himself down about the fact that he had no clue who this Boris man was. Richie and Randy moved on from that quickly anyway, and Eddie tried to find something solid to focus on. 

Another drink sort of appeared in Eddie’s hand. He tried desperately to figure out who had gotten it for them so he could pay them back, quietly fretful about the cost. He shouldn’t be drinking much tonight, for multiple reasons. He now had to save money while he was between jobs, he couldn’t get too drunk both because it was Richie’s birthday and Richie was allowed to get drunk for the occasion but would need to be taken care of by someone and because Eddie— had a habit of acting out when he was drunk around Richie. He was determined to be good this time around. 

This was, Eddie realized suddenly and somewhat alarmingly, his first actual party since graduating college. Not that he partied in particular, it was mostly those get-togethers at Julie’s or friends of Julie’s he was usually dragged to, but he hadn’t been out with a group of people his age in a long goddamn time. Eddie figured that explained why he was so on edge, in part. Richie graciously kept close to him for a good long while, but Eddie insisted he go talk to his other friends. 

“I’ll be fine, Rich, everybody here is here to see you, just go have fun. I’m not going anywhere.” 

The look of slight concern on Richie’s face would have felt patronizing from anyone else. “Are you sure? I just don’t wanna leave you high and dry here, man, you’re my guest of honor.” 

Eddie wanted to eat his own hands. He pressed his mouth into a line, tilting his head challengingly at Richie while trying to swallow that down.  _ “You’re _ the guest of honor, numbnuts, it’s  _ your _ birthday. Mingle.” Richie still looked hesitant, but Eddie waved him off, bullying him off the barstool next to him.  _ “Go, _ fucker.” 

Richie went. Not without the cutest little boy-next-door gaze tossed over his shoulder (and a somehow equally endearing stumble and swear when he almost tripped over Stella), but he went. And Eddie settled in, fighting with the butterflies or hornets or whatever was fucking around in his stomach. 

Eddie’s insides twisted with newfound anxiety about an hour in, when he received a third mystery drink and only received kind (he hoped) laughter when he begged to know who was buying them for him so he could pay them back, but no solid answer. Richie’s friends were strikingly nice. The bar was shockingly friendly, very different from the brooding atmosphere in most New York bars he’d been to. Something about it made him feel painfully lonely despite being surrounded by people, oddly small. He swallowed it down with a ginger sip of his drink, still pacing himself. 

The strangest thing, Eddie slowly began to notice once he could observe from afar, was that Richie was _ Richie, _ but Richie was also seemingly trying very hard to  _ be _ Richie. It didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, something Eddie couldn’t precisely put his finger on. Could have been a consequence of having known him so long, but Eddie could tell every time Richie flipped a switch on or off in his personality, no matter how miniscule. 

His voice dropped a few notes when he talked to Todd or ordered another drink. He talked more openly with his hands when Drew sidled up next to him. Even his laugh sounded different when Nadia leaned across the bar and whispered something in his ear, which Eddie pointedly failed not to notice. He was easy to observe, considering he was busy keeping up in his own way, and Eddie was a willing audience. 

Not that he seemed unhappy. It was an easy transition, the way he tweaked something of himself depending on who he was talking to, individualizing the experience. Richie looked like he was burning bright from the inside out. A sun in the middle of a solar system. Eddie felt like Pluto. Still in the orbit, but far, far away from the action. A tiny hunk of ice adrift in space. 

Richie had friends here. He had found a group of equally crazy people with equally lofty ambitions, and Eddie, from his perspective of childhood best friend, could tell he was flourishing. Something long dormant in Richie was slowly waking up, something was shaken loose when he fled his first small town and then his second, and he was finally coming into himself. 

Part of it broke Eddie’s heart. The selfish part. The part where Eddie secretly wondered if Richie was lonely all the way out here. Without the Losers. 

Without him. 

Eddie wanted, above all, for him to be happy, for Richie to just  _ do _ something with that unbridled potential that Eddie had always known he was brimming with, knew he was doing something and going somewhere and was so proud of him for it. It was absolutely marvelous to watch. 

But part of him wanted Richie to want more. 

Part of Eddie desperately wanted to be that more, said his fourth  _ (weak, _ he requested it weak and bought it himself, feeling weird and stuffy) drink. And that was why, of course, that was the reason Eddie wanted him to need something else. So it could be Eddie. He knew it was childish, knew it was self-centered and inconsiderate, but god, that night under the dim colorful plastic lights and heavy music, just like everywhere and everywhen else, Eddie wanted Richie to need him more than anything on earth. 

He didn’t realize he was moping until one of Richie’s friends pointed it out, and was promptly embarrassed about it. 

“Why the long face, Desperado?” Nadia asked, sympathetically enough. She was leaning across the bar during a break in orders. Richie was two people off to Eddie’s left, standing, arms over their shoulders as they chatted. 

“Oh,” Eddie started, startled. He hoped he hadn’t been caught staring.“I it— genetics. I look like my dad.” 

Nadia blinked. “What?” 

Eddie raised his voice slightly. The music was loud. “My dad? He had the same—” 

“You do look sad!” 

“Oh—” oh. Oh, that, not his— not his horse face. “Oh, no!” He cleared his throat, glancing to make sure Richie wasn’t hearing any of this. He seemed occupied. Eddie hoped no one had brought up Reagan, they might be there for a while if that was the case. “I’m good, I’m—” he waved a hand dismissively. “Hot.” 

Nadia’s bottom lip pushed out for a second. She had a little mascara mark on her eyelid. “Do you want another drink, buddy? Todd’s a friend of Richie’s, he wouldn’t mind me making you something on the house.” 

He suddenly wanted to get up and run. He didn’t know what from or where to, but Eddie wanted to bolt. He felt his pulse kick up several notches, hands twisting together under the bar where he sat on his stupid little stool. “No, no you guys have already given me a bunch—” 

“You’re in good company!” Nadia reassured him. 

Eddie was not reassured. He felt glaringly out of place. He glanced toward Richie, who was enigmatically engaged in something going on between himself and Stella and Javier, his cheeks pink and hair slightly disorderly. Eddie suddenly wanted to slip up next to him and take his arm, bury his face into his bicep like he used to when they were kids and they were scared, half his body wrapped around Richie’s bony little cigarette arm like either of them could protect each other from—

Why the  _ fuck _ were they always so fucking scared?

The room spun and Eddie forced his eyes shut, placing a hand on the bar for balance. Stars burst into his vision behind his eyelids, swirling. Nadia called his name and he blinked, looking at her without seeing for a second. 

“I’m alright.” 

“Are you sure?” 

He nodded a little too fast and made himself dizzy, wincing. “Just—” he waved a hand. “I’m good. On booze. Thanks.” Drinks were too strong, probably. He was probably drunk. He didn’t fucking feel drunk, he didn’t feel relaxed or easy or good, he hated this, but that was probably it. 

“Water?” 

“Where’s the bathroom?” Eddie blurted. 

Stella, looking a little concerned for him (which strangely made him feel even worse), pointed him in the right direction, and Eddie thanked her quickly and slid off his stool. 

Richie was only a few steps away. Eddie was careful in tugging lightly on his sleeve, and Richie turned to him immediately. There was a little sheen of sweat on his brow, his pupils big and eyes bright, glasses a little off kilter. An easy smile started to bud on his face. “Hey, E—”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Eddie announced, then went. Richie said something behind him but he didn’t stop to consider it, making a beeline as his breath started to come in quick little bursts. The music was too fast, pounding over the speakers. It was hot. It was crowded. He wasn’t drunk, this might be better if he was, but he couldn’t get drunk, he kept fucking up when he was drunk. 

Eddie burst through the bathroom door and sucked in a deep breath, immediately regretting it. The air was anything but fresh, even if it was cooler in there. Absolutely reeked of piss, but empty and cool and that was apparently all Eddie could ask for at that point.

The bathroom, of all colors for a men’s room in a gaudy tourist trap, was painted black, the walls and stall doors marred with layers upon layers of what appeared to be metallic Sharpie. Eddie paced a quick loop between the line of urinals and the single sink, fingers slipping upward into his hair in a feeble attempt to ground himself. He could feel his pulse in his wrists, hear it thrumming in his ears over the 80’s hair metal practically screaming at him through the speakers. 

_ (—killing you _

_ Watch your face turning blue _

_ Not yet a man—) _

Window. Eddie risked a glance up, eyes feeling like they were bugging out of his head, and spotted a tiny window set up high in one of the walls. A desperate thought of clambering out of it like Ziggy had that morning barely crossed his mind before he waved it off, instead lifting himself stiffly up onto his toes and heaving the thing open, shoving from the bottom until it slid upward with a rusty squeak. The relief wasn’t instant: there was barely a cross breeze, and the window was too high up for Eddie to properly stick his head outside and get a proper breath of fresh air. 

Palms slick with sweat, Eddie dropped back onto flat feet and felt his hands slide down the walls, lungs squeezing in his chest. He crunched his eyes shut and tried to count to ten, feeling something in his brain revving up. Fresh air wasn’t an option. Try water. Water was good. 

Eddie scrambled to the sink, scrabbling to turn on the faucet. He scooped a handful into his palm and shook it out, smearing the remainder across his forehead to try and cool down. His free hand instinctively gripped the basin of the sink, nails digging in against the cold porcelain. His head felt hot, brain practically throbbing against his temples. Something was coming on, rising like bile in the back of his throat, threatening to drown and overtake him. 

He couldn’t do this here.

Afraid for a moment, Eddie held his breath, knowing if he so much as felt a pinch in his throat or heard a wheeze from his chest he was going to lose it right there. Another side of him was wondering where the fuck this came from, how the fuck this set in so fast, why the hell  _ here _ and  _ now _ and during Richie’s fucking  _ birthday party _ which was going to be absolutely ruined if Eddie passed out or fucking died on the bathroom floor and oh Christ he couldn’t even imagine what hell the tile beneath his feet had seen and if he went down right now he might never want to get back up for fear of what he’d be laying in for even a second it was sticky under his sneakers the floor of the entire bar was tacky at best and he was so unbearably glad there weren’t fucking black lights in there but just that thought introduced a whole new slough of horror at what he might be seeing if there were—

His next breath was shaky on the inhale, mind whirring. He couldn’t fucking do this here, but here he was, gripping the sink for support as he fought to keep his throat from closing up. 

_ Psychosomatic.  _

Eddie felt tears prick in the corners of his eyes. He couldn’t  _ do _ this here. What dipshit part of  _ you don’t actually have asthma _ couldn’t he understand?

He sank his teeth harshly into his bottom lip, knees starting to go weak as thoughts crashed around inside his skull, a headache clawing at his vision. Surely he wouldn’t just pass out. He couldn’t. Surely nothing had been dropped in his drink, but then again, he had no fucking idea where they’d been coming from, then  _ again, _ no one fucking drugged guys and the drinks were clearly for him, then again maybe he’d been being too obvious and someone—

Arms braced stiffly against the sink, breath coming in shallow little puffs in the piss reeking bathroom, Eddie distantly heard himself sort of whine, grappling with sanity and consciousness.

He’d gotten himself out of this before without help. Without the inhaler, without anyone to talk him down, but just reiterating that wasn’t helping anything in the heat of the moment. Panic tightened steely fingers around his ribs and he gasped, trembling, then nearly shrieked when the bathroom door swung open. 

He didn’t realize he was praying for it to be Richie until it wasn’t. Eddie froze up, head whipping to the side to find (uhhh striped shirt—) Drew ogling him from the doorway. Music and laughter and conversation spilled into the bathroom from the bar, making Eddie’s ears ring. 

They stared at each other for a heart stopping second before Drew let the door fall shut behind him, eyebrows jolting up. 

“Woah, you okay?” 

Eddie, even out of the corner of his eye in the foggy reflection of the dirty mirror, didn’t think he looked anything even remotely close to okay, and thought that was kind of a stupid question. He wanted to say that, wanted to say  _ That’s a stupid fucking question, get a load of this guy. Do I fucking  _ look _ okay? _ but instead merely swallowed and winced at how unbearably gross it sounded. Why was that so loud. His ears were ringing. 

Drew looked at him blankly. Eddie wondered how this looked to him. Found it within himself to be humiliated about it despite the everyfuckingthing else going on inside his stewing head. 

“Where’s Richie?” Eddie asked, feeling his back start to lock up as he held himself hunched over the sink. 

“He’s still at the bar, do you want me to go g—”

Eddie quickly held up a hand as Drew started to turn toward the door.  _ “No— _ no, don’t worry about it.”

“Um,” Drew said. He scrubbed at the back of his neck with his hand. “I’m a little worried about it? You just look—”

“There’s just a lot of people here,” Eddie said stupidly, forcing his eyes shut afterward. His breath was still coming harshly, but seemingly coming down. It was almost as if he’d embarrassed himself out of it, unable to uphold panic under the unforgiving gaze of a stranger. “I just needed a second, I’m okay.” 

“Okay,” Drew said patiently. 

Eddie hung his head, drawing in a few careful breaths, wishing he would leave. Praying he would just see a bad situation unfolding and want nothing to do with it. Would have been the case in New York, in New York no one fucking extended sympathy to poor bastards having breakdowns in public bathrooms, you turned a considerate blind eye and moved on with your own fucking night. 

“Richie was just asking about you—” 

Eddie’s attention snapped back up. 

Drew hesitated under the sudden intensity in Eddie’s gaze, but went on. “But Steve just showed up and got a hold of him.” 

Got a— “Got a hold of him?” Eddie asked, fingers tightening again around the rim of the sink. What the fuck did that mean? 

Drew lifted a shoulder. “They’re weird.” 

They’re weird. Eddie took a steadying breath and stared down into the sink. There were strange skid marks around the bowl of it. He didn’t want to think too hard about what they could be. He could breathe, at least, even if his heart was still going haywire. “H— okay. I’m okay, really, thank you. I’ll be back out in a second.” 

Drew did not leave. Eddie started to consider that he might hate Drew. He steeled himself, drew in another breath, fuller this time (thank fuck), and looked back up to him, feeling a lock of his hair slip out of its gel and fall forward over his brow. Great.  _ “What?” _ he hissed, more vehement than intended.

Drew blinked, a little taken aback. “Oh, nothing.” He seemed nervous. Eddie narrowed his eyes, and Drew let out a little breath, knocking a shoulder against the wall beside the door. “Sorry. I just—” he dragged a hand down his face. “I actually don’t know Richie super well, he’s more of a friend through other friends so I don’t— just making sure you’re good, man.” 

Eddie pinched the bony bridge of his nose, consciously listening to the way his breath rushed in and out impatiently. “I said I was fine.” 

“Do you want another drink?” Drew asked, sort of abruptly. 

There was something about the way he said it that absolutely baffled Eddie. A question he’d been asked over and over and over all fucking night, but Drew’s tone just— what? 

Maybe this was for the best. Eddie was so goddamn confused he no longer had time to panic about— whatever had set him off. He straightened up slightly, narrowing his gaze. “What?” 

“Can I buy you another drink? Only if you think that would help. I get being nervy around new people, sometimes it’s nice to—” 

_ “Another _ drink?” Eddie’s thoughts clattered together. “Were you— were you the one buying me drinks earlier?” 

Drew’s expression was blank. He pursed his lips slightly, looking Eddie over calmly. “Is that okay?” 

That didn’t answer his question. Eddie tasted bile on the back of his tongue. It might have been paranoia, a split second reaction, assumptive and maybe a little mean, but it rushed out of Eddie before he had a chance to think more clearly about it. “Did you follow me in here?” His voice cracked slightly.

Drew’s eyebrows shot up and Eddie immediately felt bad for asking.  _ “No,  _ dude, I just needed to piss, I don’t keep track of who goes in and out of the damn men’s room—” 

“You bought me a drink?” He swept his hand over his forehead again, warm. He felt itchy. Christ. That wasn’t out of the ordinary, a few of Richie’s friends had offered, it was courtesy, Eddie was new to them, they were making him feel welcome, he guessed, but— 

“Hey,” Drew said, holding his hands up. Defensive. He took a step back, and Eddie recognized something vulnerable in his expression, despite the way he schooled his voice to sound calm and cool. “It doesn’t have to be a thing, man, I totally get it if you don’t roll that way. You’re a friend of a friend, you’re new in town—” 

“I’m not— I’m not,” Eddie stammered. 

Drew slowly lowered his hands. He didn’t look wounded, but Eddie oddly felt as if he would feel that way if he was in Drew’s shoes. “Okay. That’s f—”

“I mean new n— new, here, I don’t live here. I’m not moving here. I’m j— visiting, I’m just visiting Richie, I live in New York.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

A strange silence stretched between them. Eddie didn’t budge. His brain went blank, almost pleasantly, for a few seconds, before they both talked over each other. 

“I’ll be back out—”

“We’ll I’m just gonna p—”

Eddie shut his mouth so hard his teeth clicked. Drew swallowed, tucking his hands in his pockets. Eddie stared at him. He felt bad in an entirely different way than when he’d first sought refuge in the bathroom. Somehow it was preferable. Not great, but preferable. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head to snap out of it. “Um. Richie— Richie’s looking for me?” 

“Yeah,” Drew said, pushing off the wall and padding toward the urinals. “Like I said, Steve got in his way. He’s usually his handler when he gets like this.” 

Eddie’s poor heart almost stopped again. It throbbed painfully in his chest. “Like what? Is he okay?” 

“Oh, yeah, he’s just drunk.” 

Eddie blinked. How long had he been in there? Richie seemed tipsy when he’d left, but— he shook his head. The worst was over. He needed to steel himself before heading back out there, but he sort of wanted to get out of the same room (state?) as this Drew guy who b—

He fucking bought him a drink. Maybe more than one. Possibly out of something beyond common courtesy if he wasn’t a close friend of Richie’s— fuck. Fuck. And he was— okay he was actually in there to pee. 

He had to put several different panics on pause and get the fuck back out there. 

Eddie skittered toward the door as Drew glanced to him out of a corner of his eye, politely waiting in front of a urinal for Eddie to make his exit. Eddie stammered and sort of waved as he slipped through the door and back out into the commotion of the bar, wondering what in god’s green hell just fucking happened. He pressed the backs of his hands to the door and stood still for a moment, collecting himself, then wishing dearly he’d actually thought to wash his hands before leaving. He shuddered, feeling sticky inside and out. Sweat glazed the back of his neck and his forehead. Confusion still clouded his brain. He’d really manhandled that window and that sink and fuck, fuck, why were bar bathrooms always so goddamn disgusting? 

Richie’s hyena laugh rose above the thrumming music in the bar. It grounded Eddie just enough for him to garner his wits. The song had changed somewhere in the middle of Eddie’s stupid little episode, or whatever the fuck that had been, the atmosphere a little heavier.  _ Pour Some Sugar On Me, _ as it were. 

He was here for Richie. He could deal with his own hangups on his own fucking time. 

Eddie took three long breaths, eyes closed, and pushed himself off the door. 

He followed the sound of Richie’s cackle like a moth to a flame, picking him out near the bar not far from where he’d left him. 

The last thing Eddie wanted to do was jump back into the social circle tonight, but he was here with Richie and Richie was here to see friends for his birthday. He could stand to hang around quietly and hold down his fucking sanity until Richie was ready to leave. Whenever the fuck that would be. He could do that much for him. 

And even if Richie didn’t strictly need him in the same way, Eddie needed him to get through the rest of the night. Head ducked slightly, feeling as if he was dodging glances from no one and everyone, Eddie shuffled through the thick Saturday night crowd to make it back to the bar, now littered with shot glasses. Someone must have bought a couple rounds in his absence. Face hot as he approached, Eddie prayed the shame didn’t shine through on his face— he felt bad immediately about dipping out so suddenly and crawling back. He felt bad about the drinks.

He was feet from Richie when he nearly walked right into the back of his own head. 

Eddie took a skittering step back and the man in front of him whipped around, eyes that could have been blue but leaned more grey in a pinched little face glaring back at him. He opened his mouth to say something, but Richie, having just noticed him, budged straight past him to yank Eddie against his side. 

Within the past half hour, Eddie had worked himself into a blind panic, embarrassed himself out of it, and possibly gotten hit on. In a bathroom. By another dude. Whom he did not know at all. And now Richie. Now  _ this.  _

His head was spinning. 

“There you are,  _ fuck,” _ Richie breathed, muscling an arm around Eddie’s shoulders so tightly it made him blush on contact. He squeezed him, heat radiating off him so intensely Eddie could feel it through both of their shirts, and cocked his arm up to ruffle Eddie’s hair. “You fuckin ran off dude, you’re missing out out here.” He arched back dramatically to call for Nadia to bring a shot for Eddie, and Eddie finally recovered enough to swat at his chest and talk him out of it. 

“Christ, Richie, I don’t wanna get plastered.” 

Eddie’s head went suddenly very light when Richie’s arm dropped around his waist. “Are you even drunk? You look like— painfully sober, it’s kind of sad. And with the whole puppy eyes situation makes it even sadder, we’re  _ celebrating, _ college boy. C’mon.”

Sputtering, mind trying to address several factors at once, Eddie spat out indignantly,  _ “College boy? _ I’m not even in college anymore, idiot.” As if that was the most pressing thing to focus on. 

God, at least Richie was a good distraction from the whole— everything else. Eddie’s stomach felt carbonated. 

He tapped Eddie’s ribs with a broad palm as if it was something he did every day. Eddie’s ears were very possibly ringing. He risked a glance down and— yep. Yeah, Richie’s hand did cover a certain abundance of surface area of Eddie’s ribs. Sure did. Eddie tried very hard not to feel any particular way about that. “Yeah,” Richie sighed, “but you’re like the only person here who actually finished your degree.”

A couple scattered laughs and cheers reinforced that statement. 

Eddie was about to make a sudden disappearance off the face of the planet. Richie finally released him and reached behind him for a glass on the bar. A shiver shot up Eddie’s spine even at the  _ loss _ of contact, fighting to keep still. 

Richie was drunk, that much was apparent. Not a disaster, just drunk, allowed to be. But fuck, _ god, _ he had no idea what he was doing to Eddie with all that. 

“I have a degree,” came a voice that Eddie, on very first impression, could only read as snide. 

Both he and Richie turned to look at the guy Eddie had nearly bowled over on his way back to the bar, the one with the neat dark hair that looked a little too much like Eddie’s. He was, Eddie noticed pointedly as they faced each other, almost the exact same height as him. 

What the fuck. 

Randy slapped the guy on the shoulder. “Our guy with the real job!” 

_ “I’m _ your job,” Richie snickered, clinking his glass against his, which the guy didn’t look all that jazzed about.

It clicked a second later. Steve, manager Steve, Steve who would be here later and was here now, Steve who “handled” Richie. 

Steve, who wrinkled his nose and moved his glass slightly out of Richie’s reach. “You’re a fucking full time job, alright.” 

Richie laughed and Eddie did not. 

Steve was a staunch little man with slicked back dark hair, a thin nose, steely eyes. Eddie looked him over for a moment, noticing, uncomfortably, that Steve was doing the same. 

“Where the shit are my manners,” Richie said so politely, linking his elbow through Eddie’s. “Eddie, this is Steve, you’ve heard of Steve; Steve-O, this is Eddie, you’ve heard about Eds.” 

Eddie, swallowing something down, extended a hand. Tried not to think what Steve may have heard about him. Steve shook it, firm and a little cold. “I had assumed. Richie’s friend from Maine, yeah?”

Eddie blinked, taking his hand back slowly. “Friend from  _ Maine?”  _

“We grew up there together,” Richie reminded Eddie helpfully, patting his arm and not sensing any of the weird tension that Eddie and Steve were steeping in. “Remember?” 

“Yeah, I—” oddly complicated question. Felt weird. He tipped his head up toward Richie for a moment, ignoring the weight of Steve’s cold gaze. “Just been a while since anyone’s referred to me as  _ from Maine.”  _

“So you two have known each other a long time,” said Steve, gesturing between them with his glass. Was something neat, whisky or bourbon. Who the fuck got whisky or bourbon neat at a  _ birthday party?  _

“Since we were eleven,” Eddie said immediately. 

“Yeah, I thought Rich mentioned something like that.” 

Rich? Eddie blinked, clearing his throat. “But I live in New York, now.”

“Good for you.” 

Eddie consciously did not let his nose twitch. “But we’re both from Maine originally,” Eddie said, feeling the need to clarify. He could feel the inside of Richie’s arm pressed to his own, they were both wearing t-shirts. His skin burned at the contact. Richie was shaking his glass over his face to get at the last couple drops of booze hidden in his half melted ice. 

“Right.” Steve swirled his drink in his hand. He wet his lips and glanced to Richie. Eddie also glanced to Richie. Richie was now trying to find Nadia to get himself another drink without letting go of Eddie’s arm. Eddie started to feel vaguely protective about holding onto him. “Rich,” Steve started, and Eddie’s gaze snapped back to him. “You sure you want another one of those?” 

Rich. 

“It’s my party and I’ll black out if I want to,” Richie said, tone lighter than it maybe should have been. He shook his ice again and Nadia leaned over the bar to swap out his empty glass for a full one, and Richie looked positively delighted. “Sweet lord, it’s like it’s my birthday or something!” 

“Yeah, he’s fine, he can drink.” Eddie said. For everything Eddie was putting himself through, he could stand to let Richie have a good night. He was having fun, he was an adult, and he was celebrating, he had people here looking out for him.

“He sure as fuck can,” Steve muttered. 

Something about this man was rubbing Eddie entirely against the grain. His mouth twitched. It felt like he’d burned off even the light buzz he’d worked out before his stupid panic trup to the bathroom, then burned off more in there panicking, then the Drew— whatever, and now he just felt pissy. Sober and pissy. 

“You want anything, Eddie?” Nadia asked from over his shoulder. 

Richie, nose in his own glass, squeezed the ball of Eddie’s shoulder reassuringly. He tensed initially, all instincts telling him to shrink away from it, from this, from even the idea of letting remotely loose tonight

_ You always act up, you can’t waste any money because you just lost your job, you can’t ruin this for him, you need to think about your savings, you have to be in a sound state of mind around him— _

Richie swayed a little as he set his glass down and sighed, heavy and content. He was keeping a generally safe hand on Eddie, just keeping physical tabs on him, but Eddie couldn’t help but feel it in his bones. Steve looked sour, but was caught up with Randy again suddenly, and Eddie felt the pad of Richie’s thumb stroke over the tail end of his collarbone where it connected to his shoulder. It made him feel trembly and grounded all at once, and after a shaky breath and a split second decision to let maybe one or two things go for the sake of just trying to enjoy the moment, he turned back to Nadia. 

“Yeah, I think one more won’t kill me, actually.” 

Drew had been right. Steve and Richie  _ were _ weird. 

Eddie finally accepted a couple drinks with less guilt, reasoning that this could be something of a last hurrah before he had to go home and deal with the mess his life in New York was slowly devolving into. The crowd had ebbed and he’d regained a perch on a barstool while Richie stood close beside him, alternating between water and mixed drinks that Todd was consciously making weaker and weaker for him. He’d told Eddie so. 

_ “He’s a bit of a wildcard, but we love him here. I just don’t want him to get too twisted and wake up miserable, you know?” _ he’d offered, adding only a splash of Jack Daniel’s to a glass of Coke. 

Eddie was really glad he had people out here watching out for him. Richie kept close to him, leaning up against the bar between Eddie’s stool and Steve’s. Eddie wanted to sink his fingers into Richie’s stupid hair. It wasn’t often he got to look down on him like this. The stools were tall, Richie was leaning at an incline against the bar. And his hair looked unbearably soft.

(Nadia’s drinks were much less considerate of Eddie’s prospective state upon waking up.)

Steve and Richie, for a pair of twenty-somethings, bickered like an old married couple. Steve seemed much more impassioned about everything, uptight to a fault, while Richie was all easy comebacks and light jabs. Randy, who was equally drunk, punctuated their conversation with weak little cackles that Eddie thought were just hilarious. Eddie had never seen Richie perform, not on stage, at least, but that entertainer in him was out to play as he chattered on with Steve about something Eddie couldn’t bring himself to pay any goddamn attention to. He was too distracted by the little patch on the corner of Richie’s jaw where he must have missed shaving, the dark scruff there. The twist in his forearms when he crossed his arms. The little twitch in his lip when he smiled. His big stupid ears, his big Dumbo ears. Eddie didn’t care what the fuck they were supposedly bickering about. 

He’d finally relaxed. The tension he’d been holding onto since he dragged his sorry ass out of the office on Friday had been beaten back even just for the time being, and Eddie wanted to milk any enjoyment he could get out of it while it lasted. 

Richie finished his cup of water and set the glass down on the bar, turning toward Eddie while Steve barked at Randy for some apparent transgression. Eddie blinked lazily at him, easing into content, and caught sight of the split second between Richie looking at Steve and Richie locking eyes with him. In one of the warm lights above the bar, Eddie caught the instant where his pupils dilated, black swallowing up the blue, a sweet little expression settling into the muscles of his face. His pulse stilted, unable to say anything about that or look away for what may have been a little too long. 

“Look who’s tall,” Richie said stupidly, tipping his chin up to look at him properly. 

Eddie’s cheeks burned. “How’s it feel to be looked down on, Tozier?” 

Richie just hummed, a little closed lip smile warm on his face. 

“What?” Eddie asked, crossing his ankles tightly behind the crossbar of his stool. 

Richie shook his head. “Nothing. Forgot.” 

His hair was falling over his brow. Eddie wanted desperately to push it back, to rake his fingers back over Richie’s scalp and see if he closed his eyes or shivered or sighed. He swallowed a little too hard and took a sip of his last drink, down to the dregs. “Okay.” 

Richie patted Eddie’s knee, making him jump, and turned back to get a word in edgewise between Randy and Steve.

Steve finally dipped out maybe ten minutes later. He rather forcefully reminded Richie about some meeting somewhere, and Richie waved him off and sent him off with a friendly tap on the top of his head, and Eddie was privately glad. 

It wasn’t catastrophically late, but Eddie rarely stayed up past midnight if he could help it. It was certainly past midnight; Todd had started putting on slower jams to wind down the crowd. He yawned, face scrunching up when he caught a whiff of beer and cigarettes wafting their way from the other side of the bar. 

Randy got up and padded off in the general direction of the bathroom, and Richie turned again to Eddie. It made him feel a little crazy, the way Richie had to look up at him even just slightly. His eyelashes cast thin little triangular shadows on the crests of his cheekbones, and Eddie realized his face was very close to his a second before Richie practically dropped his big head onto his shoulder. 

“Hey,” Richie said, his voice low and hot in Eddie’s ear in a way that made him flinch.

“H-hi, Rich.”

Richie tittered a little apology and discreetly tried to raise his voice without being obvious, moving back just an inch. “You look um— grouchy, you okay?” He unsteadily lifted his head, tilting his head at Eddie sincerely. 

Eddie, brain feeling hazy, blinked blearily at him. “Huh?” 

“Not— grouchy, sorry.” Richie shook his head lightly. Eddie wasn’t drunk enough that the motion made him dizzy, but he wanted to reach a hand out and stop him anyway. “Just. You look kinda fuzzy or tired or— I wanted to check in. How’s it hanging?” 

Eddie picked at his thumb nail, keeping himself from moving his hands from their safe position in his lap. “It’s hanging good, I think. I’m fine.” Better, admittedly. Much better. 

Then Richie sank his teeth into the pillow of his bottom lip. Eddie watched, breath catching slightly, as the pressure sapped the color, flooding black in when Richie released it and opened his mouth again. He dropped his forearm over Eddie’s knee to lean in slightly. “You come here often?” 

_ “Richie,”  _ Eddie hissed, color rushing to his cheeks. This time it didn’t feel particularly bad, though. Growing pains, Eddie thought distantly. He pushed gently at Richie’s face, lifting his shoulder with a grin he couldn’t tamp down. He was just drunk, Richie was drunk and being an idiot, as usual. “Fuck  _ off, _ man.”

Richie settled for tucking Eddie close against his side again, resting his big heavy head fully on Eddie’s shoulder this time. That stirred something within him, too: usually it was Richie’s chin on top of his head, it was Richie dwarfing Eddie, not Richie bundling up next to and against him like this. Richie’s voice was low, private, rumbling deep in his chest as he glanced up toward him once more. “You wanna get out of here, Eds?” 

That sent electricity zipping up and down Eddie’s spine. He closed his eyes tightly. It wasn’t like that. Richie was drunk. Richie was just asking if he wanted to leave the bar and go back to his apartment to go lay down and sleep and wake up in the morning like two normal people did. Richie was just asking if he was done partying for the night. Eddie swallowed hard and steeled himself. “Sounds like you’re the one pussying out, Rich, you sound tired.” 

“Pussying—!” Richie gasped, indignant, and Eddie laughed. This only encouraged him. “Why I  _ never—”  _

“Don’t you dare start,” Eddie threatened, rocking forward on his stool and pushing Richie back a step with his shoulder, forcing him to stand up straight. “With the voices.” 

“You don’t like my voices?”

Eddie hummed, considering. He wished no one else were here. If they weren’t surrounded by people, by strangers and friends, he could have been bold. “Save it,” he said, diverting slightly. He shoved gently at Richie’s shoulder, watching him sway gently. 

Richie’s voice dropped to a bad stage whisper, and Eddie leaned in anyway, talking with him like it was a secret. 

“I’m asking if you wanna blow this popsicle stand, Clyde?” 

_ “Clyde?” _

“That makes me Bonnie.” 

“Oh, you’re Bonnie? And we’re Bonnie and Clyde.” 

“Mhm. So you can be Clyde.” 

“How does that make any sense?” 

“Just  _ go _ with it, Eds, cmon—”

“Alright, alright, Clyde.”

_ “You’re _ Clyde, I’m—”

“We’re both Clyde, Rich,” Eddie snickered. “Sorry to tell you.” 

“Okay, Clyde One. Numero Uno.” Richie smoothed his hand up Eddie’s back. 

Palm fit there. Between shoulder blades. Hah. Eddie’s toes curled in his sneakers. “Yes?” 

“Let’s leave.” 

“Okay, okay, let’s blow this popsicle stand. Get you home.” 

Richie made the final call, doling out big gracious hugs to his remaining friends and taking the time to thank each of them for showing up before steering Eddie with little grace toward the door. Eddie was feeling warm, not quite as far gone and happily assisting a stumbling Richie outside into the, finally, fresh air. 

Once outside the bar, half clinging to each other under the guise of support for walking, Richie’s head fell solidly again to Eddie’s shoulder. It made him jump, but he accepted the weight, mouth twitching at the corners. 

“C’mon, big guy, you gotta tell me how to get home.” 

“You’re the navigator,” Richie grumbled, head lolling a little. “I trust you.” 

Eddie couldn’t help but laugh, keeping a hand against Richie’s back to guide him, ignoring the buzzing in his fingertips. “Yeah, usually, but I’ve hardly been here 24 hours. You live here, idiot.” 

“Yeah, but you’re smart,” Richie said with a yawn like a big puppy. “You’ll figureit out.” 

And Eddie could, if only with that note of encouragement. He’d paid attention subconsciously on the walk to the bar, and knew at least the first turn to set them on the right path back toward Richie’s place. 

Seemingly leaning into that implicit trust, Richie let his face tip downward, nose bumping against the tendon in the side of Eddie’s neck. He only had a split second to brace himself before Richie exhaled warmly, breath skating across his skin lightly enough to raise goosebumps there. Eddie visibly shivered, color rising in his cheeks, and tried to shift his shoulder up to give Richie a little extra support. That was the excuse. Extra support, not shying away from the way that felt. And it  _ felt  _

“See,” Richie said smugly, graciously lifting his head an inch so he wasn’t speaking directly into Eddie’s ear as they rounded the next corner. “Knew you had it in you.” 

“Lazy sack of shit,” Eddie muttered fondly, struggling to keep his voice from wavering. Still recovering. Bitching helped. “Leaving it to me, huh? Making your poor friend from fucking New York walk your drunk ass home. You’re shameful.” 

Richie hummed. “It’s my birthday.” His voice grew a little singsong. 

Eddie shook his head. “No, your birthday was on Tuesday.”

“Birthweekend.” 

Eddie snorted. “Fine. Only because it’s your  _ birthweekend.”  _

“Gimme a break, I usually do this alone. ‘S nice.” He tried to lift his head again, wobbling heavily on his neck. “‘M glad you’re here.” 

“You walk home like this alone?” 

Richie hummed, nodded. Eddie felt a little pang of worry in his gut. Then Richie looked at him again, in that way that had been slowly taking Eddie apart all night. 

Richie had all these friends, all these wonderful people around him. And he still wanted Eddie to be the one to walk him home at the end of the night. 

And if that didn’t make up for everything Eddie had put himself through to get to this point. 

They landed back at the apartment, giddy. Eddie had resolutely named himself head of the effort in getting the two of them safely up the stairs, fitting himself comfortably under Richie’s arm and looping an arm securely around his waist to keep him steady on their climb. Richie was brilliantly warm and achingly pliant. It felt good to support his weight, to feel him cling at the sleeve of his shirt, navigating the back stairwell and pressing each other’s weight into one another to stay upright. Richie was in a state, but Eddie was secretly some kind of proud to be the one watching out for him. Determined to deliver him home safe and sound. 

It took Richie a full giggling minute to get his key in the lock and meander the pair of them inside, making a beeline for his bedroom. 

“C'mere,” he muttered, voice deep and uninhibited. 

Eddie’s stomach swooped, knowing the invitation was nothing but feeling like it was something nonetheless. 

“C’mon, I wanna listen to music,” Richie insisted, gripping the doorframe of his room for support. His body was one long line, fluid, like a stroke of a calligraphy brush, his clothes hanging off of him comfortably. He pressed his temple and his cheek against the doorframe and waved Eddie over. Looking him over, Eddie swallowed, then complied on shaky knees. 

Richie flopped backward onto his mattress and reached behind him, stuffing the end of a cord of white Christmas lights into a socket near the head of his bed. It illuminated the room in a mellow sort of glow, hazy and warm. One long window overlooked the street in front of the apartment, streetlights glowing orange, palm trees casting loose navy shadows across the floor. It looked as if there had been some attempt to tidy up, but clothes and shoes still littered the floor in drifting piles. His sheets were an eggshell white, his comforter, which was bunched at the foot of the bed, looked to be somewhere between blue and purple. Richie was sprawled sideways across the bed on his back, trying to maneuver one of his black Chucks off with the toe of the opposite one, an arm thrown carelessly over his head. Eddie lingered awkwardly in the threshold, trying to get a good look around, trying to look anywhere but him. The buzz of alcohol in his blood made him feel lightly electric, warm and thrumming. 

“Eds,” Richie said, voice still gravelly, and Eddie was forced to look back to him. He’d propped up on his elbows, one shoe finally off. It dropped with a heavy thunk. He looked lanky and relaxed, long legs spilling over onto the floor. One shoe. Eddie gulped. “You’re making me dizzy standing there, just c'mere.” 

With a curt nod, Eddie complied again, padding across the floor to perch timidly on the edge of the mattress. Next to him, Richie sat up with a little grunt of effort and reached for a small stereo set on his nightstand. Eddie watched as he flicked through a stack of cassettes and CDs on top of it, selecting something from the pile and stuffing it into the bay. 

Something familiar, something a little older, something that made Eddie realize, loathe as he was to admit it, he thought Richie’s penchant for classic rock was weirdly attractive. 

“You’re being really quiet,” Richie observed. 

“I’m tired,” Eddie noted, shifting his knees together. 

As music started to crest in little waves, filling the little room with sound, Richie laid back again, eyes following Eddie the whole way down. His arm laid bent above his head, framing him. He looked painfully pretty like this.

Dorky, Eddie reminded himself forcefully. With the glasses that made his eyes bug cartoonishly and the dopey face and the big ears that stuck out on the sides of hsi head and the— endearing— no— the stupid way he—

This was useless. 

“Something wrong?” Richie asked kindly, quietly. 

“No,” Eddie said, a hair too quickly. Something about this felt dangerous. It was a private space here, they’d been drinking, Eddie had been thinking. 

He jolted when Richie reached out and placed a hand on his back, that little place it fit. They both knew it by now. Puzzle pieces. Richie snickered softly behind him, spread his fingers soothingly, Eddie closed his eyes against it. “You’re tense as shit, are you sure you’re okay?” 

“Yeah, Richie, I’m fine.” 

“Did somebody say something at the bar?”

Eddie was being worn down by the softness in his voice. He didn’t get this version of Richie often. He, in fact, hadn’t had this version of Richie in a very long time, this sweet concern. The lack of a persona, stripped down and tired and unabashedly kind. It was the voice and the gentle hand against his spine and the music that coaxed him to lay back into the sheets, feet still on the floor to ground him. Richie turned onto his side and tucked his knees up slightly, getting situated, getting comfortable, hand pinned under Eddie. It seemed to burn through his shirt. 

“Not really,” Eddie admitted, feeling honest but not damingly so. “Just a lot on my mind. I’m okay.” It wasn’t something anyone said. It was just the consequence of being Eddie. 

“Good,” Richie said, stretching a leg out. Like he was indecisive, couldn’t figure out how to lay properly, how to share a space this close with Eddie. Eddie wanted desperately to help, but he felt slightly frozen. “Did you have a good time?”

“I did,” Eddie said. He said it because he was having a good time now. That was what counted. He drew a shaky breath and started to kick off his own sneakers. Might as well. 

“My friends liked you.” 

Eddie was torn apart by him like this. Earnest. Eddie’s smile was wavering, overwhelmed. “I’m glad.” 

“I could tell, they liked you, Eds.” 

“That’s good.” 

Richie hummed. 

Eddie thought he might own this album too. He’d definitely heard it before. The first couple songs rolled past them. It was David Bowie, he recognized the voice. Eddie had put Bowie on Richie’s tape he made him so long ago. Different album, though. That song was from a different album. 

He thought. He hoped. If that song came on while they were lying here like this, in this comfortable silence and this golden light in this private little slice of Richie’s life, Eddie might melt straight through the mattress and the floor and into the poor unfortunate’s apartment below.

“Oh,” Eddie said abruptly when it struck him. He giggled, more charmed by it than he should have. “Ziggy, he— did you name him after Ziggy Stardust? Your raccoon that’s definitely not a cat?” Where was he, by the way? He’d left the pair of them alone again. Whoops. 

Richie laughed too, and he was perfect. He rolled back onto his back as Eddie got his second shoe off, lifting his knees and pressing his heels into the edge of the mattress. “Yeah, he— kinda.” His hand was still trapped under Eddie. He draped the other across his stomach, worrying his lip in his teeth again. Eddie couldn’t look away from his face for a moment, from the soft hair around his ears, the awkward crook in his nose, his mouth. “He’s Ziggy, and there was a Stardust, they both used to hang around a gas station. They were like— partners, I think.” 

Richie went quiet, and Eddie was suddenly crushingly sad. Oh, Stardust. There was a Stardust, and now there wasn’t, and now Ziggy lived with Richie.

“But you— so you guys found each other.” 

“Yeah, we were both lonely, I think.”

Eddie hummed sympathetically, tearing his eyes away for a second. He was glad, almost unbearably so, for Ziggy and Richie. For, for lack of a better way to put it, those two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl. This fishbowl. Richie’s little apartment, something that desperately needed more life. He sucked in his cheek and gnawed on it lightly, aware of the way the tension was eeking out of his shoulders. Aware of Richie’s fingers flexing against his back. He lifted up slightly, and Richie gingerly removed his hand with a light apology, his hand was going numb. Eddie didn’t even mind, somehow, just called him stupid wretchedly fondly and clammed up. 

They laid there until the first few chords of  _ Starman _ thrummed through the room. 

Eddie, cautiously, almost afraid of shattering the fragility of the moment with any movement, turned his head back toward him. 

Richie’s eyes were on him, his gaze heady and intense. He blinked slow and heavy behind the panes of his glasses, just looking at Eddie. Looking at him. And Eddie thought, plain stupid, pulse revving near painfully,

_ Like he wants to kiss you.  _

Eddie had to look away. He jerked his head back and looked up to the ceiling, sinking his teeth lightly into his bottom lip to ground himself. Like a pinch to the inner arm hidden under a desk, a little self reprimand when caught distractedly staring at the back of a dark curly head in front of him in algebra.

His heart was pulsing in his throat. 

“Do you—” Eddie grinned, he beamed, warm affection seeping through his veins. “Do you have stars on the ceiling?” 

“Oh yeah,” Richie breathed, playing it off. “Yeah, they’re just the cheap little stick-on ones. They were already here when I moved in, but they were kinda getting old and I saw a pack of them one day at the dollar store so I just. Stuck some more up there.”

It was sweet, it was adorable, really— and he did. He did have glow-in-the-dark stars smattered on his ceiling, barely visible in the low light. Radium green, faint. They’d be brighter if the lights were off. Bolder. 

Maybe Eddie would be too. His stomach dropped at the thought, and he sank his teeth back harder into his lip, trying to curb the impossible path his mind was wandering down. 

Eddie wasn’t looking at him. Richie missed it. 

Richie had been trying so, so desperately not to be captivated by him. Not to fall victim to his bone deep habits of fawning over Eddie, of the magnetic attraction to him that had taken root in him years upon years ago. The first boy he’d thought was cute, triggering the realization that he was different in that way. That Richie was different, different in that specifically wrong way he’d been told not to be. With Eddie it had always been there, that urge to move a little closer, talk a little louder. Wanting to hold hands, wanting to be best of best of best of more than friends despite the different, despite the wrong. 

And here it was. Still pressing in at his temples, squeezing tightly around his heart. But it was more grown up now. Eddie was more grown up. The first boy Richie really thought was beautiful. And he was— beautiful. He was downright pretty in a way. Not that Richie would ever tell him that aloud. Eddie would find a way to be insulted by it, maybe thinking it too feminine. But he was pretty. His heavy eyelashes, the sharp angles and planes of his cheekbones, the shadows they cast in the dim glow of Richie’s bedroom. Dimples. Richie tried not to focus too sharply on the way his teeth pressed into the thin cushion of his bottom lip, tried not to think about the fact that once, somewhere long ago and far away, he’d finally gotten a little taste of what his sharp little mouth felt like against his own. The quick wit and the shy smile. Richie wanted so badly to have more.

Richie failed, every time, not to be captivated by the depth in his dark brown eyes, and the moment they turned back on him, examining him like they did, Richie felt bright and electric all over. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked rather suddenly, surprising himself a little. He needed to, he needed something that broke that wire tense thrum in the air that cropped up whenever Eddie laid eyes on him. 

Eddie was incredulous, his solemn expression cracking with a disbelieving grin.  _ “I’m _ looking at you like that?” Their shoulders were brushing. Richie felt a little faint, felt like he was spinning. And it wasn’t just the alcohol. “You’re all— you’re looking at me.” Eddie gulped, sounding as if he was swallowing the tail end of a sentence he couldn’t finish. 

Richie felt his demeanor soften. Felt an icy layer of defensiveness melt away. Truth serum was rushing through his veins. He sighed, being honest. “I just— I just really like hangin out with you. Is all.” 

That simmered in the air for a moment, like a sin announced in a confessional. The weight of it settled over them, yet it was oddly comfortable. A thick quilt in the winter, warm and welcome rather than suffocating. Richie had to wet his lips, mouth having gone a little dry, and turned his gaze back up to the ceiling. He’d made a couple dippers, a generally big and generally smaller one, out of the stars. Constellations made up of the faded leftover stars and the new ones he’d bought to fill some of the space. A hot little chill ran down his neck, downy hair standing on end as Eddie’s arm came to rest next to his, just close enough that he could feel the hair on their forearms make contact, brush. They settled there for a moment, the lines of their arms touching shoulder to pinkie, and if Richie had been of more sober mind he might have even realized the intention there. That Eddie’s hand was straining to reach, that his pinkie was extended just far enough to touch where Richie’s lay curled softly on the mattress beside him. 

Richie dared another look, something quick and curious out of the corner of his eye. 

He was so close. One more fraction of an inch and they’d be well into each other’s personal spaces, crowding, insistent. A little grip of desperation clawed at Richie’s chest. He could picture it in his mind. Had played it out countless times over countless years, countless restless opportunities like this one, Eddie so close. 

_ Richie would reach up to cup his face, to stroke a thumb along the graceful line of his cheekbone, fingers pressing gently at the corner of his jaw, just behind his ear. A soft spot. Eddie’s eyes would flutter shut, those dark eyelashes dusting his cheeks, pink lips parting just so, inviting. And Richie would gladly accept, would prop up on one shoulder to press a kiss downward against his mouth, let the hand on his face slide down to press into the mattress, lean over him, shield him with his own body, press gently against him, feel the race of his heart under his ribs. Kiss him, taste his tongue, hold onto him here, map him out. Finally finally.  _

It would be easy, it would take a simple shift, a hair of an inch.

Instead, Richie let his head roll back, straightening his gaze up to the ceiling, and groaned a little too loud. He was too drunk to be pulling moves as significant as that one.  _ “Christ, _ I want a fucking cigarette,” he grumbled. 

He felt Eddie tense beside him and squeezed his eyes shut. 

It was for the best. Richie was far too drunk to be this responsible, but here he was. 

God, if it were anyone else in the world but Eddie, he would have gone for it. He would have laid one on him, tucked him into his arms, kissed him and shown him how much he meant it. He didn’t  _ want _ it to be anyone else but Eddie, but it was. And that was playing with fire. 

_ But, _ drunk Richie thought, _ is it too much to ask just to touch him? _

He had an excuse. They both did. The soundest excuses for this kind of thing. 

Drunk + Lonely = Lay In Bed And Hold Your Friend’s Hand. Cling To Him. 

Excuses, for now, could do. If just for the little things.

Eddie had to pull in a little burst of air when he felt Richie’s fingers search for his own in the sheets. His pinkie crossed over Eddie’s, then his ring finger, the middle, inching over Eddie’s stiff hand until he flipped it palm up and welcomed the pads of Richie’s fingers into the spaces between his own. His heart somersaulted, brain whizzing as Richie wove their hands together and curled his fingers around the back of Eddie’s hand, pressing his heady warmth into Eddie’s skin. 

Eddie was quite obviously familiar with Richie. Had known the bastard since grade school. Knew, on a basic level, that Richie had these god awful big hands, that he had blocky palms and long sturdy fingers, that the spread of one of his hands could, in theory, hold a lot of Eddie. In his palm. But it was dizzying, feeling him just link fingers like this. Hold onto him like this. Wrap him up. Eddie closed his eyes against the waves coursing through him, almost motion sick from it. He drew in a careful breath and allowed himself to squeeze back, and Richie  _ sighed.  _

They were drunk, yes, but Eddie was suddenly intoxicated off the broad stroke of Richie’s thumb across his knuckles. He screwed his eyes shut tight and let himself shiver despite the warmth of the room. His spine relaxed. His blood sang in his veins. Richie’s fingers were just barely trembling. Eddie felt caught in the center of a whirlpool. 

After several thick heavy heartbeats, Richie felt Eddie tense, fear gripping his mind for only a split second before Eddie melted with a yawn, muscles easing all over his body. A shaky smile crept onto Richie’s face, a desperate prayer budding in his mind. 

_ Please fall asleep,  _

he begged. 

_ Please, please fall asleep and give us the excuse. I don’t know how to tell you how badly I want this. It’s your last night. Just stay with me.  _

A moment stretched between them, long and languid yet racing toward a tipping point. Richie couldn’t decide whether he should close his eyes and feel or open them wide and look, wanting all his focus in this. Into committing it to memory. He’d never hear this album the same way again. The music left a light coating over everything in the room, freezing it how it was right then and there between the bars. The moment might come back in Richie’s mind whenever he heard this chorus, but he couldn’t exactly conjure Eddie to revisit it with him. He only had him for right now.

Richie closed his eyes. 

_ Just stay.  _

“I should— we should really get some water,” Eddie suggested hoarsely, and Richie knew it was over. 

His stomach sank into his toes, watered down with disappointment. “Hm.” 

Another stretch spanned between them. Eddie shifted, nearly squirmed beside him, and Richie tried to privately mourn the second he was going to have to let him go.

“Cmon, Rich, you can’t just opt out of a hangover, we’re not in college anymore,” Eddie insisted, more resolute. “You don’t need a cigarette, you need water.” 

They could both hear the excuse in it. The getting out of it, the playing it cool. There was something in Eddie’s voice that suggested he wanted this, but he couldn’t let himself have it. That maybe, maybe, he’d considered staying, closing his eyes and falling asleep or otherwise, but simply couldn’t bear to let himself. 

It stung anyway. 

“I haven’t been in college for a long time,” Richie muttered, fighting it inch by inch. 

“Tough shit,” Eddie said. “Still need water.”

The room was spinning. Richie realized a moment too late that this was because he was ungodly drunk; he’d somehow found a sparse little window of near sobriety when Eddie had nudged their hands together. But the spins were returning, the dizzy pitch of the room and muddling in his mind. Richie grunted, Eddie squeezed his hand lightly, Richie swallowed spit and nearly choked on it. 

Apparently, this indicated to Eddie that he really needed water, and their hands slipped from each other as Eddie got up much too fast for Richie’s eyes to even track it, only making him dizzier. 

“Hey, no—” 

Eddie disappeared, scrambling out the door.

Richie was just gone enough to allow tears to well up in the corners of his eyes, though the reasoning behind them felt a little vague. Maybe he just missed him. He stared at the door for what felt like entirely too long, blinked, sniffed, looked at his ceiling. He felt like he was in a vacuum, like something was crushing him, like things were suddenly not good, but he also distantly was aware that the last round of shots was finally catching up with him.

He was half frightened he was going to black out. Once it happened once, it was so easy to get there accidentally. It had certainly happened more than once. 

“Eddie?” he called, annoyed at the whine in his own voice, nearly wincing at it. He sniffed again, vaguely aware his nose was running, and heaved himself up onto his elbows, the room pitching. “Christ on a bike.” 

“Hey,” came Eddie’s angelic little voice. Standing in the doorframe with a cup like a fucking hero. Looking a little squirrely. A squirrely little angel hero, how bout that. 

Richie scrubbed at an eye, a goofy smile overtaking his face. “Hey,” he half whispered. “Thought you went.” 

“I went?” 

“Yeah.” 

“No,” Eddie said, and it was the greatest instance of the word  _ no _ in the English language. “Still here.” He padded toward the bed, sitting down gingerly, offering Richie the cup. A gift. Richie’s eyes nearly welled up again. “Drink.” 

“You’re so nice,” he muttered. “Don’t mind ‘f I do.” 

It was, admittedly, a little gross, helping Richie drink his water like a toddler. He gripped at the cup clumsily and Eddie helped him adjust, placing a guiding hand at the back of his neck, damp with sweat. Richie hummed at the contact and Eddie swallowed down the little flutter in his chest at the sound. He helped him get one cup down, messy and dribbly as it was, and got up to shuttle him a couple more. It was a quiet process. Eddie focused on the task, on getting Richie hydrated, shoving down his own turmoil. Richie started fighting it on the fourth glass, and Eddie resigned to leaving it on the nightstand for him. He had to help him out of his other shoe, an equally tender and clumsy sort of task, during which Richie decided to comment both on how nice and how mean Eddie was. Nice of him to help him out, mean of him to handle him like this. He was a grown man, didn’t Eddie know? A hammered grown man who couldn’t be bothered to take off his shoe on his own, Eddie reminded him. 

Once Richie was as comfortable as he would get (Eddie was not about to help him out of his jeans, that he could handle on his own if he needed to), Eddie retrieved a trash can from the bathroom and made sure his shoes were out of the way so he wouldn’t trip if he got up, risked brushing the humidified curls back from his brow, took a deep breath, and stood to make his way out to the couch. 

“Stay,” he heard from behind him, weakly. 

“I can’t,” Eddie replied, aching, honest. 

He needed to wash his face. Eddie very quickly unplugged Richie’s lights for him and left him like that, settled more properly into bed and with water, very neat and tidy and responsible of him. He stepped into the bathroom, turned on the tap, and simply watched the water run. He could feel his pulse in his fingertips, pressed tightly to the cold porcelain of the sink.

_ You can’t have him. _

Eddie closed his eyes, drew a deep breath.

He was trying. He was trying so fucking hard not to hang onto it. But—

He opened his eyes, cautiously collected a handful of cool water into his palms and smoothed it over his face, releasing a breath, very cautious with it. Breath even. Slow the heartbeat. Stop thinking. Stop. 

Turned off the tap. Did not look in the mirror. Let his eyes unfocus, vaguely aimed down at the sink. Swallowed. Do not hang onto it. His eyes refocused, scanning the items on the sink. Toothbrush. Comb. Toothpaste. Deodorant. 

He wanted to put some on. It was pathetic, embarrassing. He eyed the stick of deodorant like it was venomous, his guts twisting around themselves. He liked him so fucking much he wanted to wear his deodorant to bed, as if sleeping in his apartment on his couch under his blanket wasn’t enough. He wanted to go to sleep to the smell of him, despite him being in the room twenty fucking feet from him but also just— impossibly far away. 

On instinct, Eddie made eye contact with himself in the mirror. It was a mistake. The expression on his face was nothing short of lovesick, painful just to look at. His throat squeezed when he swallowed as if he was about to get choked up. Part of him wanted to throw a punch at the glass just to see if that stupid doe eyed idiot in his reflection would flinch. That fucker was ruining his life. Actively fucking ruining his life, with the fucking— with the inferiority complex and the guilt about his fucking mother he was still holding onto and the guilt about Myra and the fucking wanting Richie so bad he felt it in his toes and it ached in his bones like the very marrow was simmering and had since he was fucking little and the fucking— job and the—

“How’s the  _ boyfriend, _ Kaspbrak?” he growled at himself, the traitor. “Fucker.”

All he did was hold his hand. That should have been fine. But bitterness clung to the back of Eddie’s tongue. It felt thick and fuzzy in his mouth. He needed water too. 

With one last glare at his bastard reflection, Eddie flicked off the light and went to fetch himself a glass, drinking greedily from the tap as a headache started to press at the inside of his skull. Richie was worse off than him, but he was still going to be in a state in the morning if he didn’t do something about it. Water, a slice of stale bread from the bag on top of the toaster oven that went down like cardboard, more water. 

Eddie had trouble getting out of his jeans, nearly catching his ankle and stumbling, and he swore aloud into the quiet apartment. Richie only answered with a snore, and somehow that still managed to grip at his chest. At least he was asleep. Eddie cussed quietly at himself and kicked his shoes and jeans approximately under the coffee table, falling face down on the couch, expecting to keep himself up running laps around his own head until the sun came up. 

He was out in approximately 14 seconds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs mentioned:  
> Too Young to Fall in Love - Motley Crue  
> Pour Some Sugar on Me - Def Leppard  
> The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (album) - David Bowie (Specifically Starman)


	29. ALLOWED

**SUNDAY**

Cognizance usually returned slowly to Richie in the morning, especially after a night out. He received two thoughts when he woke up, with increasing urgency:  _ upchuck _ and  _ now.  _

He was so well versed in hauling ass out of bed and streaking into the bathroom that he was more surprised than hurt when he glanced his knee off the doorframe on the way in and down. He winced as he dropped in front of the toilet and lurched to the right to crank on the shower. He only had a split second more to brace himself before he threw up, elbows winged out on either side of his head as he ducked into the bowl. He was quiet about it, knew how to be polite with a guest in the house. 

Once he’d gotten out whatever was going to come out for the time being, Richie got to his feet as quickly as his shaky knees would allow, wiping at his mouth with the outside of his wrist and praying Eddie wouldn’t notice when he flushed the toilet. It was always a smidge over the line of embarrassing, throwing up the morning after, and Richie liked to think he handled his liquor well. Just a weak stomach. Which Eddie knew about, but regardless. It wasn’t the best look. He stripped out of his socks and jeans, musty with sweat from having been slept in (he needed to stop doing that, christ) and stepped unsteadily into the cool stream of water. His shirt was apparently abandoned at some point or another throughout the night. Richie could only pray that had happened at home. And after Eddie went to bed. 

That— he could worry about later. Worrying about it now would mean another ten minutes driving the porcelain bus. 

Richie scrubbed himself down quickly, sucking down gulps of shower water when he could to try and curb the hangover threatening to take him down the moment he stopped moving. He could probably stave off the worst of it now that he’d gotten some of it out of his system, but the headache might be there to stay. Once he felt passably clean, Richie brushed his teeth and slapped on some deodorant before dashing out of the bathroom in his towel to dart into his room, hopefully unseen. 

Eddie had to be at the airport by four.

It wasn’t quite yet noon, they still had some time. 

Richie wasn’t surprised that Eddie was already up. A little more bashful about the throwing up, maybe, but the shower should have masked the worst of it. He hoped. Richie pulled on some cotton shorts and a t-shirt, throwing a flannel at the last second to feel less exposed. It felt like an old one of Bill’s or Mike’s, too roomy to be his own. 

Eddie and Ziggy were in the kitchen together, apparently having made reparations, as it seemed Eddie was quietly negotiating a table scrap sharing situation. Richie froze behind the couch, watching. Eddie had already dressed in his jeans and striped t-shirt, both of which looking maybe a size and a half too big for him, and was crouched on his heels with an olive branch in the form of a roll of salami between his fingers. Ziggy sniffed at him, baring his tiny front teeth as he raised his lip and gingerly stretched toward Eddie’s hand for a curious bite. Richie stood perfectly still, afraid to ruin the moment, so sun baked and gorgeous it couldn’t possibly be from his own life, but felt his knees turn to jelly when Eddie cracked an exhausted, barely-there grin as Ziggy snatched the offering and darted off to the opposite corner of the kitchen to devour it. 

Richie swallowed a lump in his throat and had to consciously right himself to keep his weak legs from collapsing under him, and the sudden movement caught Eddie’s eye. Eddie whipped back to look over his shoulder and stood up immediately, one of his knees popping loudly.

“Ouch, hi,” Richie said automatically, wincing at the sound. “Make a new friend?” 

“Yeah, he was crying all morning, I felt bad for him.” Eddie said, voice a little thin. He wet his lips, feigning casual as he reached behind him to lean up against the counter. One hand missed and he had to catch himself from slipping.

“He’s fine, just spoiled.” Ziggy chirped as if to argue that point. Richie raised his eyebrows at him. “You’re getting fat and you know it,” Richie said, crossing his arms. Ziggy merely licked his chops, nonplussed. 

“You sleep okay?” Eddie asked, looking oddly squirrely against the counter. “You were talking again. In your sleep.”

Richie felt heat press into his cheeks. “Yeah, I knocked out like a light last night.” There was the stumble home, he remembered that, the laying in bed. The music, the dim glow of the lights and the stars on the ceiling, they’d— held hands? Explained the excess butterflies in the stomach upon waking up. He raised his eyes cautiously to Eddie, who sort of shrank, picking at a nail. Just held hands, right? That was fine, normal, friend shit, that was okay drunk, that was— that was fine. But Eddie, when Richie got a good look at him, looked a little lost. His eyes were lacking their usual brightness, the circles under them all the more pronounced. Little grey thumbprints of sleeplessness, worry. Something gripped Richie’s ribs and held on tight, his already scratchy throat going dry. “You look— tired. Did you get any shut eye last night?” 

“I just don’t sleep well when I drink sometimes,” Eddie admitted, brushing it off. It felt too dismissive to be the whole truth. 

Richie swallowed, feeling his stomach sink. A feeling he did not need. He cringed, placing a hand gingerly on his gut. “Um— thanks for getting me home last night.” 

“Yeah, of course.”

Richie scrubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand, hair still damp and cool. Something felt off. Richie wasn’t sure how to voice that, but felt he needed to be more careful with it than he usually would be. He had a sinking feeling, something heavy starting to settle onto his shoulders which he couldn’t place. 

Eddie nibbled at his lip, eyes darting around as if he could find something more interesting than Ziggy licking his own ass to cut through the thick blanket of weirdness crowding the tiny kitchen. “We should eat—” His voice cracked. He winced. “Bread?”   
Richie blinked blankly. “Oh, yeah. I could make—” 

“You don’t have to,” Eddie said a little too quickly. “I can— I can make sandwiches? That always helps when I’m hungover, I don’t know if,” he trailed off, slipping his hands into his pockets and drawing his elbows in tight to his sides, shrugging. 

“Oh, yeah, I mean— I’m okay, I’m pretty well versed in this, but. That’d be nice, yeah.” He swallowed. His tongue tasted forcibly like mint masking morning breath. “Thanks, Eds.” 

Eddie blinked at him again. “No problem.” He held eye contact for only a split second then looked away, shoulders shifting up toward his ears, closing himself off. Richie’s stomach sank into his toes. 

Fuck. Either something had happened or something was about to, and Richie didn’t know what was worse. Richie asked gingerly if Eddie wanted any help, but he refused as politely as he could, and Richie sat his ass down at the table, trying not to watch him too closely. Ziggy circled his ankles as he dug through the fridge and assembled two neat little sandwiches on a pair of paper towels, and Eddie tried very valiantly not to step on him as he went, all his movements held close to his body. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he worked, a telltale wrinkle in his brow. Richie would have liked to blame it on the residual alcohol in his system, but he knew in his core he just genuinely wanted to smooth out the tension with his thumbs, place his fingers behind the corners of Eddie’s jaw until it relaxed, bundle him up for a moment and let him breathe. It was the kind of instinct that made him squirm, the kind of thing he’d been intentionally squashing down in himself since he was about twelve. 

He dropped his eyes guiltily as Eddie padded over to the table, setting a sandwich in front of him. Richie thanked him quietly and Eddie reassured him, again, that it was really no problem, and they ate. Richie lifted the sandwich to his mouth immediately, only thinking to investigate what the hell was on it after he’d taken what felt like an oddly empty bite. He peeled back the top slice of bread to reveal a salami sandwich. Just salami. With what looked and tasted like mayo on the top slice and mustard on the bottom. There wasn’t even cheese. 

Richie was almost embarrassed at how powerful the surge of affection was that overtook him as he took another bite of the stupid thing, safe to look over at Eddie for only a passing second. The midday sunlight brought out every little gold and red strand hidden in his dark head of hair, made his dorky ears glow pink, backlit. 

How the fuck had he fallen for a boy who ate plain salami and condiment sandwiches?

Ziggy was the only one who had anything to say as they quietly picked through what could only be called their brunch, Richie gently scooting him away from the table with a foot when he begged. 

As the early afternoon ticked by, Richie was increasingly sure he’d done something or, god forbid,  _ they’d _ done something 

_ He’d woken up still in his jeans, it couldn’t be that bad if that was the case, it surely couldn’t be  _ that _ bad— _

and that Eddie was carrying the weight of being the only one who remembered. Not bold enough to dare ask, Richie muscled through and suggested they put on a movie and hang around the apartment for the rest of the day. Eddie didn’t fight it, seeming oddly passive, which by no means helped Richie’s nerves. 

When Richie, fresh bowl of popcorn in hand, returned to the couch after setting up the TV, Eddie was jammed up against the arm to one side. The distance had a weight to it as Richie gingerly sat back on the opposite cushion, Eddie just a hair too decisively far for nothing to be wrong. Richie quietly started the movie, trying with everything in him to avoid watching Eddie stare blankly at the screen. Their hands dodged each other as they took turns reaching into the bowl between them. Not even  _ Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure _ seemed to be perking Eddie up or taking his mind off things, which only made Richie all the more certain that Eddie’s sudden detached mood was his fault. Unless the problem was directly next to you in the room, _ Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure _ solved any problem for exactly an hour and thirty-one minutes. Even at around an hour and five minutes in and Eddie was still solemn, Richie still squirming.

It wasn’t like this when Richie had visited him last. Over the span of a couple days, they’d gotten comfortable enough to at least sit close to each other on the couch sober, to snuggle up drunk. That was something. This felt colder, and Richie feared for the sake of his fingers and toes from the sudden onset frostbite. Eddie simply stared ahead, molars worrying the inside of one cheek, hollowing it out. 

He still had freckles high on his cheekbones. Faint, faded, grown up, but there. A mole on his cheek. Richie’s heart seemed to spasm. He looked away. Eddie didn’t notice him staring. Eddie, in fact, looked a little pale, far away in his own thoughts. He nibbled on a nail. Richie hadn’t seen him do that since sixth grade, before someone had mentioned offhandedly that it could increase the chance for ingrown nails and infections. 

_ Don’t ask.  _

But he seemed— he’d seemed bothered. If Richie looked back, Eddie seemed uncomfortable at the bar, had dragged his feet slightly at the beach before that, ate quietly at their first breakfast, was pensive even when Richie had picked him up from the airport. Eddie had a lot going on in that brain of his all the time, and maybe— maybe he just. Maybe he—

_ Don’t! Dipshit! Leave it! Drop it! Bad!! _

He had to fucking ask or it was going to eat him whole. 

“Eddie?”

Eddie’s tone was flat, betraying nothing. “Yeah?” 

Richie struggled to sit still. He felt like he needed to do a few laps around the apartment from all the nervous energy building like static in the gaping space between them. “You holding up okay, buddy? You seem off.” 

“I’m okay, Richie, really,” he insisted mildly. 

Richie never liked it when Eddie was mild about anything. By nature, Eddie was not mild. 

Something had to have happened. Richie didn’t know when, didn’t know what, but he knew Eddie and he knew when Eddie was keeping something bothersome to himself and he knew when he wasn’t okay, Richie, really. 

“Eds, I know something’s been up, I can tell.” Despite knowing Eddie’s tells like the back of his hand, Richie was still barely comfortable asking. His only lifeline was the fact that Eddie had seemed off the entire time he’d been in Los Angeles, not merely since the previous night. “What’s going on?” 

_ Nothing else, right? There couldn’t have been anything else. It isn’t me, is it?  _

Richie hated the not knowing. He hated waking up and learning new facts about things he’d done the night before. But nothing had happened last night. He was sure he hadn’t quite blacked out, even if he might have come close. He remembered being out of his mind drunk and somehow clinging with his last scraps of coherence to the discipline to not let anything happen; he remembered laying  _ near _ Eddie, linking fingers in a way that made his brain light up like the cheap rainbow Christmas lights his father detangled and strung around the tree every December first since Richie was a kid, he remembered Eddie leaving briefly, he remembered Eddie returning with water. There was nothing to hand holding between friends who’d held hands plenty of time as kids, dragging each other along, keeping up, playing safari, running from imaginary tigers in the bamboo beside the river. There was nothing alluring or dangerous about force feeding a drunk idiot water. The sights and sounds of the whole process were typically entirely unsexy. Between all that, there wasn’t really a window for anything altogether too damning to have gone down. Couldn’t be.

Eddie shifted uncomfortably, trying to shrug it off. Whatever  _ it _ was, now that Richie was sure there was _ something.  _

“It’s embarrassing,” was all Eddie revealed, his voice low as if Richie might not be able to hear him if he tried.

That could be anything. Eddie tended to be very easily embarrasseable. He could have let an ice cube slosh out of a margarita last night only to have someone nearly slip on it. He was the kind of person to carry the guilt about something like that for a week even if they’d caught themself before actually falling. The kind of person who felt bad for things that were entirely not his fault. 

_ Eddie, eleven, crying, overly sympathetic, holding Richie’s hand resolutely as they walked home. Richie limping, face stinging, knees and cheek bruised again from the usual abuse, strangely proud and protective: he’d taken the falls, Eddie had escaped unscathed. Richie held a strange measure of pride in the fact that Eddie always got away, that Richie took the punches and the name calling and the belittling and all of it in stride. “You didn’t even do anything wrong,” Richie remembered Eddie saying to him through sniffles. “Sometimes you mouth off, and you need to stop doing that, Richie, you really do, but you didn’t even  _ do _ anything this time. It’s not fair.” _

_ “It’s life, Eddie my love.”  _

_ “But it’s not fair.”  _

So it could be anything. But they’d been friends for far too long for Richie to let him feel this miserable, no matter what it was about. Eddie would have done the same for him. Had, in fact, time and time again. 

Had rubbed his back when he’d finally broken down about just how unfair life could be sometimes, even at eleven, when the bullying and the sheer unfairness wore him down. 

Richie chewed his popcorn kernel a little too long, feeling it go soggy against his back teeth. He shrugged, trying to lift some pressure off of it to ease Eddie up. “So what? You make a regular idiot out of yourself every time I see you, this isn’t news.” 

Eddie glowed red, immediately hunkering down in the collar of his shirt, arms crossed tightly over his chest as he fixed Richie with a venomous glare. It was cute as it was concerning: Richie didn’t want him to actually shut down if this was something serious. 

He held his hands up in defense, trying to save it. “Hey, dick for brains, I’m kidding. I mean I’m not, you do do that, but it’s— I mean nothing can be too embarrassing between us, right?” 

As soon as the words left his mouth Richie wanted to eat them. He swallowed, memory helpfully providing a vivid montage of some of the most prominent times things were far past too embarrassing between the two of them. Even just in recent years. And they’d started puberty together, for fucks sake. 

Eddie scoffed, apparently thinking the same thing. Similar things. Richie didn’t know. He wished, for the millionth time, that he could tell at all what Eddie was thinking. “Right.” 

Richie counted several seconds into his silence before persisting. “Eds.” 

Eddie hummed dismissively. Chewed on his thumb nail with a keen canine. 

Richie swallowed around his dry tongue, hoping. Don’t let it be something he’d done. For the love of god, if there was one, don’t. His voice came out a little reedy. “Come on.” 

It took twenty difficult seconds of silence. Richie had learned this trick long ago. Eddie was so accustomed to him rambling on and goading him that silence was more effective if he really wanted to get something out of him. It made the air feel so awkward that Eddie simply had to break it. Richie watched him, witnessing every passing flicker over his face, the little shadows of doubt, the parting of his lips a few times as if he was on the brink, the shutting his mouth and letting his teeth click together. The twitch in his jaw, the conscious not-looking back at Richie, the squirm under Richie’s conscious looking.

_ He really is pretty, _ Richie was able to think, mortifyingly, uselessly, between the passing seconds of waiting for him to crack. 

“Well,” Eddie finally said, still stiff as a board, giving into almost nothing. 

Richie tried to brace himself. At least if it was bad, Richie would know. If it had anything to do with him, he’d know. Richie tried desperately not to think that sometimes knowing was so much worse. 

“I g— well.” Eddie sighed, pinching the pad of his thumb until it turned white. 

Richie popped a fresh kernel into his mouth, pulse slightly elevated from the worry and suspense. His nerves were vibrating like bass strings. This kind of thing was hell on his impatience and his anxiety. He’d love to have the patience of a saint like some of his other friends, but— 

“Spbit it out, Kaspbrak,” he said gummily around the popcorn, not even waiting to swallow.

Eddie muttered a fussy little  _ ew _ under his breath, stalling, before shaking his head and dropping a sigh. He lifted a hand to his mouth then dropped it, maybe remembering the hangnails and infections, and set to harshly picking at his cuticles in his lap. It took another moment of working up to it, his voice lowered.

“I got— fired. Sort of. This week.”

Richie hadn’t known exactly what he’d been expecting, but it sure as hell hadn’t been that. He kept his voice and expression cool, reaching for another handful of popcorn. “Fired?” he asked as lightly as possible.

“It’s  _ embarrassing,” _ Eddie insisted, as if he needed to defend his discomfort on the matter. He’d somehow sunk further into his shirt, retreating as if he were wearing a turtleneck rather than an old t-shirt. 

Relief came first, simple relief that Richie hadn’t done something massively wrong to ruin Eddie’s whole weekend, then concern. “Oh. Ouch, dude.” Who the fuck would fire Eddie Kaspbrak? That made no sense. His work ethic was, frankly, frightening. “That sucks.” 

Another full minute passed during which Eddie stared at the screen but, worryingly, still failed both to enjoy  _ Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure  _ and to elaborate. 

Richie ventured to continue. “May I ask what happened, or are you going to bite my head off if I so much as try?” 

The look Eddie gave him nearly made Richie want to skitter under the couch like Ziggy did when anyone knocked on the door, but years upon years of friendship and knowing this guy far too well for either of their own goods let him hold his ground, shaky as his ground was.

“That’s you asking right there, asshole!” Eddie barked, swinging an arm out toward him, closer to Richie than he’d been all day. He wound up. “You don’t need to be a dick about it, I said it’s embarrassing and I’m pissed at myself for letting it ruin my whole fucking weekend, but I’m fucking humiliated and I have to show my face there for another fucking week before I pack up my stupid little cubicle and grovel at the feet of the next manager willing to consider my mediocre-at-best fucking CV for a shitty _ hopefully _ paid position at another shitty little office where—” winding himself, Eddie took a breath and swiped a hand across his forehead, looking a little frantic. His breath came out in a huff, neatly packaging up some of his frustration to methodically tuck it away. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I can’t take this out on you. I’m— I’m actually just really fucking worried about it and I’m letting it get to me, none of this is your fault.”

Richie was secretly very glad Eddie was taking it out at all. He’d wished, in fact, maybe Eddie had taken it out the first night he’d gotten there, then he would have had a better time. He swallowed down a needy _whaddyoumean_ _you didn’t enjoy your weekend?_ for the sake of focusing on the bigger picture here. “Fuck,” he said what he hoped was sympathetically. “That— blows.” 

It was a wonder he made any money off of talking. 

“It does blow, it blows really fucking hard,” Eddie agreed. He crossed an ankle over the opposite knee, foot bobbing restlessly. “I don’t— I don’t wanna lay this on you, I’m sorry. It’s been nice, being here.” 

Richie cleared his throat, more touched by that than he cared to admit. He tried a reassuring smile, softening his voice. “You can talk to me, Eddie, come on.” He risked a light elbow to Eddie’s side, crossing that previously impossible divide. “We’re friends, man.” 

Something about that seemed to unsettle Eddie further. Richie assumed guilt. That muscle in Eddie’s jaw twitched as he shook his head, trying to relax even a little bit against the back of the couch. He was really just sitting at an odd angle, back rigid. “I’m sorry, I just— I really don’t know what I’m going to do. It feels like I just got out of my mom’s place and I— don’t want to have to go back—” 

“You don’t have to,” Richie said immediately, sitting up straighter, pulse rapid. Fuck if he was going to let that happen. “Fuck that, Eddie, you can just move i—”

“I think maybe I should go back to school. Get a master’s? I don’t— I mean I still need a job, but— fuck.” 

“You can get an MBA anywhere, Eddie, I’m sure there’s plenty of schools around here—” Richie, mouth hanging open, cut himself off. He needed a second. 

He was pretty sure he almost just offered to let Eddie move in with him. 

Twice.

_ Cool it, shit for brains. Christ on a  _ bike.

Eddie wrinkled his nose. “Nobody’s gonna take me seriously if I have a business degree from a school in LA, Rich, fuck. No I— I can go somewhere in New York. My grades weren’t— terrible, I can find somewhere that’ll take me.” 

“Yeah no that’s yeah— that makes sense, I’m just saying you— the world is your oyster right now, you can do whatever you want.” Fantastic save. Very smooth.

Exasperated, Eddie sighed. “Is it? I’m about to be broke as shit, my apartment is stupid expensive for what I’m getting and I need— I still need a new job even if I go back to school.”

Just be  _ helpful, _ Richie.  _ Unbiased _ and helpful. This was a normal conversation with a normal friend. He cleared his throat. “Can you get hired at the school like you did for undergrad? That seemed to work out alright.” 

“I don’t know,” Eddie admitted. “I don’t really know how graduate school works, that was a scholarship sort of thing. I—” he worried his hands again in his lap, dropping his foot to the floor and pressing his knees together. “I just really don’t want to look for a job right now, it’s— fuck, Richie, I don’t want to finish out the one I  _ have. _ I still have to work this week, I have to face—  _ shit. _ God.” He shook his head, and Richie barely caught a tremble in his lower lip. Not on the verge of tears, moreso on the edge of something else uncontrollable, a sudden tidal wave of bad feeling. 

Richie felt a little sick looking at him suddenly, his own bad feeling curdling in his stomach like old milk. He wouldn’t be pressing the issue if Eddie didn’t look so utterly unsettled. And Eddie, just mentioning a couple more days at this job Richie knew he’d hated to begin with, looked like he wanted to make a desperate break for the Mexican border and never look back. There was more to this story. 

In the wake of Eddie’s heavily onset silence during which he picked at his clothes and nails and gave up on trying to pay any attention to  _ Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure _ entirely, Richie tucked a knee up on the couch and turned toward him, pulling the popcorn bowl into his lap to break down the one physical divide between them on the couch. Just in case. “Eddie.”

Eddie knew what Richie was asking in just saying his name like that. His thick eyebrows sank down defensively, eyes looking anywhere but at Richie like a bad dog. “Yes, Richard?” 

Youch, a whole Richard. Eddie was balancing on the brink of something, playing at annoyance to try and get Richie to drop it. Richie strapped in, not letting his gaze fall from Eddie’s face. He draped an arm over the back of the couch, getting himself barely an inch closer, an indication of his own presence. Just in case Eddie needed it. This was going one of two ways. 

“What happened?” 

_ Tick, tick, boom. _

“Fine, they— They finally fucking got to me!” Eddie shot up off the couch. He dragged his palms down his face before clapping them together, fingers stiff. “They’ve been  _ needling _ me for a fucking  _ year _ and they finally fucking got to me and I finally snapped!” He threw his arms out, let them drop to his sides, then pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“They— what?”

Eddie set to pacing, rounding the back of the coffee table and cutting across the living room in front of the television. “These  _ ASSHOLES _ at work, Richie, they they they- they harp on me all the fucking time and I  _ know _ they’re just trying to get a rise out of me and they finally  _ DID _ they were talking about Marty—” 

Richie almost choked on a kernel.  _ “ _ M—  _ Marty—? _ ”

_ “Myra,”  _ Eddie hissed, correcting himself. Richie ignored that, feeling a weird little squirm at the nickname, like he’d somehow invaded something private. Eddie was gaining steam. He prattled on, his voice only raising and cracking as he went. “They were— remember?” He asked depserately. “On Valentine’s Day everyone fucking found out we broke up and it was— it was just  _ sad _ it was  _ embarrassing _ and they  _ finally _ fucking decided to tease me about it this week and fucking call me a fucking f—” He threw his hands up, waving them above his head and dropping his voice mockingly. “Oh, Kaspbrak's fucking _ gay— _

_ Wh— _

“—we all  _ know _ Kaspbrak is fucking gay, he broke off his fucking engagement and that just confirms he’s some limp wristed fucking  _ fudge packer!”  _

Richie flinched. 

Eddie’s hands were a flurry as he paced back the other direction. “ _ Finally! _ Right? We all knew let’s— let’s fucking  _ tease _ him about it because he won’t do  _ SHIT— _ and I fucking  _ did _ shit alright I fucking— I fu—” his breath hitched, eyes going wide, mouth shutting only halfway. Gravity seemed to turn back on, his shoes hitting the ground hard when he landed. His voice dropped, the softness in it tinged with hurt. “Oh, no.”

Something cold dropped into Richie’s stomach, thoughts flying. His heart sank with Eddie’s face. He wanted to open his mouth to ask him if he was okay, to ask him what  _ oh no _ meant, to even just reassure him of something, anything, Richie wasn’t sure what, but his jaw felt wired shut, only able to stare as Eddie stood suddenly very still and chillingly quiet. 

“Oh my god.” Eddie deflated, devastation drawing his shoulders down and in. Something in his voice started to choke up, his gaze unfocused. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times, a breath of something like disbelief falling from his mouth. Richie stared, not realizing he was holding his breath. Eddie touched his mouth, hand unsteady. “Oh, my  _ god.”  _

He was almost afraid to ask, still collecting the debris from Eddie’s initial outburst to get a sense of what the fuck was going on. “What?” 

One more beat. Something huge and very quiet. And then: 

“I think I got fired because I’m gay.” 

A whistle like a bomb dropping crowded all other sound out of Richie’s ears, taking with it intelligent thought, sucked out into a vacuum. It wasn’t casual, the way Eddie said it, his voice having scratched like a needle on a jostled record player. Richie’s mouth went dry, his voice absent for a pregnant second, the petrified look Eddie suddenly turned on him only scrambling his thoughts further.

_ Say something. Sweet fuck, for the love of god, just say  _ something. 

Nearly choking on spit, Richie gave saying something a valiant shot. “Uh h— y—” It didn’t go well. He shook his head like a dog shaking water out of his ears, throat feeling gummy. “Huh?” 

The color drained from Eddie’s face, eyes drifting away from Richie, looking anywhere but. His hands twisted in the hem of his shirt. “I said I think they fired me because I’m gay,” he reiterated, if only because he couldn’t take it back now. Richie had heard. They both knew Richie had heard, but Richie’s thoughts were currently clam chowder. His world was sort of on its head. 

Eddie’s jaw twitched, trembled. He cleared his throat, trying bravely to square his shoulders. As if this was a simple fact, as if he had bigger fish to fry. He sucked in a shuddering breath. It made Richie’s insides turn to soup. Eddie’s voice, despite the valiant effort to plow on unaffected, grew hoarse, tripping slightly over trying to get the words out quickly, to glaze over that last little hiccup. “I got fed up and finally talked back to some of those other fucking interns, but I don’t think it was because I got in a bitch fest I think it’s because the bitch fest was—” and then his face changed again, dropping open and searingly vulnerable, the reality of it sinking in to fast. “Holy shit, Richie. Can they— can they do that?”

He looked devastatingly small, hands balled up in his shirt, shaking. Laying himself bare with worry yet trying, somehow, to make it seem like a small deal. That was awful, if that was true, if they fired him bec- b- but he— 

“You’re gay?” Richie blurted, unable to help himself. He nearly slapped himself for it, cringing as soon as the words were out of his mouth. 

But it seemed to snap Eddie out of his momentary devastation. Thank fucking god. 

_ “Yeah, _ Richie,” he said, and Richie’s stomach dropped to his toes. Eddie wound himself up, puffing his chest slightly, and something in Richie was wildly proud. Sickeningly, almost painfully proud. “That’s— old news, I’m— more concerned about the this— the job, the— the.”

Eddie was clearly not more concerned about the job. It was clearly not old news to Richie. It was, in fact, very brand spanking new news. His head spun. 

_ He’s gay, _ this sadistic, gleeful part of him cheered.  _ Eddie Kaspbrak is wildly, insanely, out of your league, always has been, but look, look, he’s playing the same fucking sport.  _

_ You’re not fucking alone here. _

Richie snapped out of it, scolding himself. The main concern here was that Eddie just lost his job, and apparently may have just lost his job on account of being gay, which was altogether really fucked up,

_ but he’s gay? He’s gay. That kiss wasn’t a fluke. At least not sexuality-wise, just— maybe Richie-wise. The boy is gay, hot fucking dog. _

_ The boy is gay and he might have just lost his job because of it. This isn’t cause to celebrate, selfish p—  _

Richie sputtered, trying desperately to focus. “I uh— oh, god. Fuck, they— that’s not good.” 

“No! It’s not good, Richie! It’s—  _ fuck,” _ Eddie swore, pressing his face into his hands, collapsing in again. “Sorry, um, two big life updates.” This strange, strangled bark of a laugh squeezed itself free from behind his palms. He dropped one hand to gesture loosely. The other he held tight over his eyes, shielding his face. “I’m gay and unemployed. Um.” 

_ Welcome to the club, _ Richie thought, which was funny, but only half true on both accounts. He was merely bisexual and a comedian. “Okay, y— yes,” he said instead, intelligently. 

Eddie, red faced, dropped his hands and stared at Richie.  _ “Yes?”  _

“Fuck, um— yes that’s— that’s fucked up. Can they d— I think they can do that but are y— do you really think—?”

“Yes, I do think! I do think I—” Eddie’s breath choked out of him in a harsh wheeze, and both of them tensed on instinct. Richie made to get up off the couch and Eddie held out a hand to stop him, raking a hand back through his hair. He was shaking. “Stop, stop, I’m fine.” 

“Are you—” 

_ “Yes,” _ Eddie hissed. “I just—” he forcibly collapsed down onto the couch, hands flitting around his mouth. “I should pack.” 

“H—  _ Eddie!” _ Richie called out of him as Eddie darted off the couch again, making a beeline for the bathroom. “Hey, hold on, we can— do you need to talk about this, man?” He nearly flinched at the casual punctuation, cursing himself for trying to smooth things over already. 

It was beginning to dawn on him, at this, maybe the worst time on Earth, that he was growing exhausted with smoothing things over with Eddie. 

But Eddie was fleeing, hoping the situation would just glaze over itself. The bathroom door shut with a bang and a rushed  _ sorry  _ from the other side, followed by a louder “No, actually, Richie! No, I think I should probably get my shit together and go home. I— I’m sorry.” 

That second little sorry, which, clearly, had nothing to do with slamming the door, threatened to crack a fissure into Richie’s heart. 

There was nowhere to run. Not for either of them.

Richie decisively set the popcorn bowl aside and got to his feet, striding toward the bathroom door. He knocked a shoulder against the doorframe, listening with straining ears to Eddie shuffling around. He’d hardly left his toothbrush on the counter the previous morning, Richie there wasn’t exactly much to pack up. Eddie didn’t have much of a habit of making himself at home. His bags had remained packed nearly the entire trip save for the clothes he was wearing at the moment. 

“Eds,” Richie tried, testing the waters. No response. A slight pause in the reckless clattering.  _ “Eds,” _ he tried again, letting his eyes fall shut as his heart throbbed in his throat. “You just came out to me, you realize that, yeah?” 

This silence was slightly heavier. Richie heard Eddie drag in a tight breath. “Yeah, Rich, it fucking seems that way!” 

“Are you okay?” Richie wasn’t. He didn’t feel very okay at all. He felt, actually, way more conflicted than he ever thought he would, in the rare quiet moments he’d dared to consider this as a remote possibility. Because this wasn’t, actually, a happy occasion, this wasn’t some landmark on a journey of self acceptance or whatever, this was a harsh reality rearing its ugly head and this was Eddie hurt by it, and this was Richie desperate to somehow make it better without letting his own selfishness get in the way. He was afraid to falter, he was afraid that this was one thing he couldn’t help Eddie through. For a number of reasons. 

“Hunky- _ fucking _ -dory, Richie.”

“You know it’s— fine, right?” 

Richie fed himself an excuse.  _ Don’t make this about yourself, _ the excuse read. In between the lines, it screamed,  _ don’t air your own dirty laundry while his is on the line, it’s too much. The line will snap. Then god only knows what will happen _ . 

“I just— I mean— how long have you known?” Richie tried. 

“That I’m gay?” It sounded like the words hurt Eddie’s throat. 

Richie swallowed hard, trying, desperately, not to think too hard about why he’d asked. It was just a well-meaning question he’d been asked about himself a few too many times. “Yeah, sure.” 

Eddie answered quickly. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it, Rich.” 

Richie tapped his fingers on his arm, wishing desperately his pulse would slow down. It was hard to hear over the rush of blood in his ears. “That’s okay. Can you just— maybe not hide in the bathroom?” 

“No.” 

Richie sighed. Resigning himself, slid down against the doorframe and got comfortable on the floor beside the door. “Okay, that’s fine too.”

A moment later, he heard the whump of Eddie taking a seat as well, the light thunk of his head tipping back against the door. 

_ I’m right here, _ Richie thought, as if it could reach him through the two inches of wood.  _ Not going anywhere.  _ Even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t. He pulled at a thread on the hem of his shorts, carefully pacing his breath. The last thing he needed was to panic. Eddie couldn’t exactly go anywhere either; they were going to have to address something one way or another. 

“Richie?” came Eddie’s voice after a few strained moments, meeker than it should have been. 

Richie sat up immediately, heart fluttering around like a confused flock of birds. “Yeah?” 

Eddie scoffed, something like a mutilated laugh with no joy behind it. Feigning casual. Feigning okay. Desperate behind the mask. “You couldn’t tell?”

It sent a hot painful bolt into Richie’s gut. He felt his face scrunch up, residual hurt, hurt, mostly, for Eddie, rising in the back of his throat like bile. “I couldn’t tell what? That you’re—”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathed, his voice considerably more choked up. Richie had to shift where he sat, uncomfortable, fearing he was seconds from clawing through the door with his bare teeth and nails. He would, too, if Eddie started to cry. “I think it’s— fuck, Richie,” and his voice only grew scratchier. Richie pressed his cheek to the door, frantically listening for a catch in his breath. He wondered if he’d locked the door. He hoped not. He didn’t want to shred the thing to bits to get to him. “It’s gotta be obvious, right? If everyone fucking knew?”

Richie opened his mouth without a plan, then shut it. Little victories. He squeezed his eyes shut, wondering what the fuck he was supposed to say to that. 

_ Eddie, I have been praying and hoping and wishing on every fucking lucky star I’ve ever seen in my entire life that you at least batted for my team, and now I feel guilty because I feel like I’ve just burdened you with the same curse. I am so blinded by my own feelings that I can’t ever accurately answer that question, and I have been bullied for being gay for so long despite the fact that I’m not even  _ gay _ gay and I do my best every fucking day of my life to appear as pleasantly and securely straight as possible. I don’t know obvious, Eddie, I have been actively working against obvious my entire fucking life. _

But he couldn’t say that, could he? 

“I don’t— think it works like that, Eds.”

“Like hell it doesn’t.” And Richie could hear it now, the blistering hurt turning to scalding anger. “I think my  _ mom _ fucking knows, she’s probably been silently freaking out about that my whole fucking life, I think she was so keen on Myra because she thought maybe I was actually going to turn out normal and settle down, for fucks sake, and look how that turned out.” 

Richie was two parts glad Eddie could confide in him like this and one part angry it had to be him. Wishing it was anyone else in the world. He didn’t know if he was even remotely equipped to talk to him about any of this. There was too much in the way. There were Richie’s feelings, there was that misplaced kiss three years ago almost to the date, there were the pretty boys in Boston Richie couldn’t keep his hands off of and the way he’d had to lock that part of himself back up the moment he stepped outside of that safe little bubble, there was the rampant self loathing for that, there was the way, when Sandy had broken up with him, Richie had thought _no, no,_ _I had it locked down, I was safe, I had an out and no one would ever have to know, I’d never have to think about it again except when we watched_ Back to the Future _and Sandy mentioned she’d always thought Marty McFly was cute when she was a kid and I could admit that I did too but that was between us and us only and no one would ever have to know and now that she’s gone and we’re over I’m at risk of falling in love with a boy, again,_ he’d thought, _again, because the first time was him and the second time was Sandy, and I thought Sandy meant it was over with him and I, but maybe feelings can lie dormant and come back, like cancer,_ and then he felt tremendously bad for comparing it, them, to cancer. Cancer killed, boys liking boys got you fired. 

Then again, Richie knew, in a part of his mind he didn’t often let his thoughts stray into, that other times, it did. Other times boys liking boys could get you killed. 

Richie felt sick. It was almost grounding, a feeling so familiar in such glaringly uncharted waters. He steeled himself to the best of his ability despite the way his vision seemed to swim. “There’s no use thinking like that, Eds. It doesn’t matter.” 

“It doesn’t  _ matter?”  _

_ “No,” _ Richie barked, impassioned. “Eddie, if you’re gay you’re just gay, it doesn’t fucking matter who knows or who can fucking _ tell, _ it’s all—”

“If it doesn’t matter why the fuck don’t I have a job right now? If it doesn't matter that I’m— a fucking  _ queer—”  _

_ “Stop _ it!” Richie squawked, surprising himself. Eddie fell silent for a moment as well, taken aback. Richie recovered as quickly as he could, swallowing several things that felt like rusty tacks on the way down. “Stop— saying shit like that. You’re gonna go back to school, Eddie, you’re gonna land yourself a better job, and this isn’t gonna ruin your life. It doesn’t have to, and you don’t have to—”

_ What? _ part of him asked, mockingly.  _ Don’t have to  _ hide _ it?  _

_ Tell that to the boy who wrote ‘Richie Kaspbrak’ in his wide-ruled yellow history notebook exactly once in the seventh grade then tore the page out and set fire to the thing as if the heat could burn off the feeling, the boy who didn’t wear a color brighter than navy blue the entire time he was in high school for fear of being found out, the boy who got his dick sucked by another boy in a bathroom at a house party and was eager but too drunk to return the favor and proceeded to ignore and avoid the poor guy for two more years in college once he’d sobered up, the boy who ran out on Eddie Kaspbrak when he kissed him because he thought it was surely a mistake like all the other times boys had kissed him, the boy who thought he was ‘safe’ because he liked the velvet feeling of a girl’s lipstick against his mouth which could, in theory and with practice, override the fact that he equally liked the sensation of beard burn on his cheeks. You can’t do anything to make him feel better, Richie. You still think that you are dirty and you, apparently, are contagious.  _

While Richie was in the midst of reeling, Eddie burst out of the bathroom door and spilled out into the kitchen, every muscle in his back drawn tight. Richie flinched, drawing his knees up to his chest before consciously telling himself to relax. 

It was just Eddie. Just Eddie having one of the worst afternoons of his life in conscious memory. 

Eddie, face red, paced the kitchen. Ziggy ran and hid. Richie was jealous. He’d never been afraid of Eddie’s fire. He usually, in fact, reveled in it. Used to goad him to catch a glimpse of it, used to love stoking it and watching him blaze on in a way that was exciting and kind of beautiful to behold, but right then Richie felt like he wanted to burrow into the doorframe like a termite just to shrink away from the heat of it. Eddie wasn’t a kid anymore, none of this was child’s play. 

Eddie was shaking mad, furious, chock full of fire and trembling in the low gold light of the kitchen. Richie wanted to touch him suddenly, ground him with a steady hand, but he had none, all jitters now. He’d started to tremble sometime back without noticing. He felt stripped raw, as if he was the one bearing his soul, despite having worked this whole time to hide it, to keep it out of things. Hide hide hide, all he knew. 

_ Don’t make this about yourself.  _

He started, gingerly, to clamber to his feet, watching Eddie pace like a caged animal along the line of his kitchen counter, his face scrunched and ruddy from something akin to anger, cousin to frustration, a close relative to a crushing kind of sadness. 

“Eds,” Richie tried. 

Eddie’s face fell, faltered, before he turned away, gripping at the counter. The movie on the television had long gone silent, the title screen shedding mild light into the living room. Late afternoon sunlight streaked through the kitchen window and washed over the tense contour of Eddie’s drawn-tight shoulders, a warmth that clearly didn’t reach him. 

Richie held his breath, counted to ten. “Eddie?” 

Eddie slammed a fist down onto the counter, jostling the silverware drawer with a clatter. Richie managed not to flinch as it opened an inch, exposing a flicker of silver, Richie’s one spoon knife fork and wine opener. Embarrassing indications of a very lonely existence. Richie held perfectly still. 

Eddie’s voice, quiet as it was, was the loudest thing in the empty little apartment. “I don’t want it.” 

Something choked up in the back of Richie’s throat. Eddie, hands pressed firmly to the counter, the side of one going white from the force, didn’t elaborate. His head was ducked down, shoulders jammed upward, the line of them stiff and unwelcoming despite the trace of gold sunlight along his outline. 

Richie dared ask. “Don’t want what?” He kept his voice soft, kept it under control, tried to do the one thing right he knows how to do in the moment. Because he didn’t know what else he could do. All signs pointed nowhere. 

Eddie didn’t say anything for a moment. The question hung in the air, mixed sourly with the sound of Eddie’s labored breathing, the active attempt to slow it, to slow the racing throughs Richie could have almost heard if he strained his ears hard enough. 

He’d never thought of himself as a good listener. But he was hanging, strung up, waiting with bated breath on the mere sound of Eddie’s clothes shifting on him as he tried to sigh. It was a mangled little sound. 

“I don’t  _ want  _ to be gay.”

Richie felt his nose wrinkle like a snarl without meaning to. “If anybody wanted to be gay do you think anybody would be gay?” he said, immediately. That he knew he was good at, shooting off at the mouth. So be it. It was about him for a split second. Maybe he was angry too. Maybe he didn’t want it either, not if the world was going to make it so obvious it didn’t want him because of it. 

“That doesn’t  _ help,  _ Richie, that doesn’t fucking help at all!” Eddie shrieked, wheeling around finally, red up to his ears with something Richie couldn’t name but understood. 

Traitorously, Richie could only think  _ there he is. Get it out.  _ Vicious, hot pride.  _ Get it all out. You’re tougher than I’ll ever be, be brave for both of us.  _

_ “NOTHING _ is going to help this, Rich, I just fucked myself over trying the only thing that  _ COULD _ help this, look how bad that backfired! Look at Myra! I’m gonna be fucked up about that for  _ years,  _ Rich! She’s going to be f—  _ That’s— _ that’s fucked up! It’s fucked up,  _ I _ fucked up! Richie—” 

and Richie couldn’t help it, couldn’t help catching the tone with which he said his name, the repetition of it, like satisfying a refrain in a sad song. 

“I- I- I-“ Eddie stuttered in rapid succession, and Richie automatically reached out a hand as if to touch his arm to steady him, only for Eddie to clutch it to his chest as if it were broken, tender, as if burned. Richie shrank back slightly. 

“I don’t know what I was going to say,” he admits, and it shakes. He’d lost his foundation, and Richie thought, desperately, from somewhere he didn’t expect,  _ if you have to build yourself up again from the ground up I’ll be there for it _ and, almost detached, thinking of the hundreds of times he’s heard his father say it, 

Worship _ the ground— _

And all that love and minor eloquence boiled down to something dismissive enough to allow Eddie to dire off again. Richie crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow, letting his unsteady weight sink into the wall behind him as he faced Eddie head on and challenged him, the only way he knew how. “What, is that it? Cat gotcha tongue?” 

And he was off again, refusing to let Richie win. 

“I did everything,” Eddie said soberly, fueled by the momentary distraction, “I did  _ EVERYTHING _ I thought I had to to make it go away and it just  _ WOULDN'T _ , and I’m sorry—“

His voice finally cracked. 

Richie worried for a moment that this was too much, that his emotional capacity was boiling over and he was about to shut down himself, but he surprised himself again. Richie reached for him again, a fresh sort of anger welling in his chest. “Don’t even  _ start, _ you little prick, do  _ not—“ _

“No I  _ am _ sorry, Richie, I’m sorry,” he says, rolling boil falling to a simmer. He, miraculously, if reluctantly, accepted the hand. Richie clung to his wrist, and Eddie stared at it for a moment, lips just parted. He shook his head at himself. “I dragged you into it and it was stupid. I was being stupid I brought you in then kicked you out—“

This, Richie couldn’t stand for. “I kicked  _ YOU _ out, Eddie, I ran out on you—“

“I don’t  _ know!” _ Eddie howled, tipping his head back and squeezing his eyes shut like a little kid. “I— fuck! I don’t know what got into me, I just—” he lost steam for a split second, huffed, Richie feeling his hand flex and clench with his fingers laced around his wrist and softened his grip. Cradled his wrist, Eddie’s pulse quick. Richie, almost without meaning to, passed his thumb over the base of his palm, the tender skin on the inside of his wrist. “You— fuck, you did. I understand— I mean I—” he dropped his gaze, closed his eyes against something. Confessed. “It sucked.” 

Guilt stuck Richie through like a pin cushion. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, shakily clinging to Eddies’s wrist. 

Eddie sniffed, refusing to meet his eyes. “Save it, jackass, I’m apologizing first.” 

A pang of hope or relief sprung through Richie at the sound of his voice. “So we’re taking turns? How nice.” 

Eddie’s head snapped up, and Richie caught that little blaze behind his eyes. Light, for the first time, since that morning. Richie did love him a little. He’d loved him a little for a very long time, a little love that had been snowballing for years on years on end, a little love that, even now, made Richie feel so tremendously weak in the knees that he felt he was clinging onto Eddie for support rather than to comfort him. 

“I kissed you,” Eddie said. 

“You did,” Richie said, and he couldn’t fight the tiny, dizzying grin. “I was there.”

“I need to sit down,” Eddie admitted, sounding, suddenly, utterly burnt out. 

“Okay.” 

Richie guided him to the couch. 

He was small then, tucking up on the couch into a little ball as if his shins and arms could protect his exposed soft underbelly. Richie sat down just near him, giving him space. Something in Eddie remained quietly furious, simmering on low. Burning up like a fever rather than a flame, and Richie worried for a second he was going to crumble to embers and ash. 

Then Eddie started to cry. 

Richie had seen this transition in him before. Nuclear bomb, aftershocks. When he’d put everything out there he had to fight with (and fuck, is there so much,) then needed to be taken aside, somewhere dark and quiet, to deal with what’s leftover. Eddie tried furiously to wipe it away, to flick off the tears when they brimmed over the dark line of his bottom lashes, but Richie acted, leaned forward, stopped him. Eddie looked stripped, disarmed, and Richie worried for a second he might just cry too. 

He swallowed it down, cold and salty at the back of his tongue.

Richie had never, and would never again, meet someone like Eddie Kaspbrak. Someone who could contain so much, someone who felt so deeply and so, so unabashedly, someone who loved relentlessly and viciously and who almost never cried for himself. It was always for someone else. It was for Bill who lost his little brother, Eddie trying, all the time, seemingly, to fill that hole left in his life with himself. For Stan, who felt inadequate, for Ben, who felt unlovable, for Mike, who felt ostracized and alone, for Beverly, to whom life had never been kind, and for the awkward, too-loud one with the glasses, the one who couldn’t stand to love himself, who was battered and bullied, who wanted so badly to be absolutely anyone else. 

So Eddie, it had always seemed, loved Richie in Richie’s stead. And here was Eddie, allowed, for once, to be scared for his own sake, to collapse. 

It was the least Richie could do to catch him. Eddie cried and Richie choked up, reaching for him out of sheer instinct and pulling him against his chest, wrapping his arms around his shoulders to secure him. It was brief, made shorter, maybe, because for once, Eddie did have someone’s shoulder to cry on, but Richie felt every pang and every second of it. He was exhausted, clearly, tired from years of this.

_ How long— _

This was something Richie couldn’t even begin to get into, could hardly begin to understand, but—

If any of their friends got it, it was Richie. Complicated as that may be, he knew this feeling well. Even if he was afraid to confront it like this. 

Eddie cried it out, and, if Richie was being honest, which he decided then and there he maybe needed to start being, he let a few tears slip free as well. It was snotty and raw, Eddie buried in Richie’s shoulder until the waves crested and subsided and he was left looking a little shaken and a little hollow, and he pulled back slightly, swiping a stubborn forearm under his nose as if to wipe away the evidence. 

When Richie stroked a broad palm down his back, he closed his eyes, his lip trembled, he looked away. 

And then, miraculously, he started to relax. 

He shoulder fell against Richie’s collar bone, and he permitted the arm around his shoulders to stay. 

Ziggy, sensing the end, padded out from behind the couch, cocking his head. He made a strange little sound, and Eddie turned his head to look at him, alleviating some of the pressure. Quiet moments ticked by, both of them still. The pieces, broken porcelain shattered all over Richie’s floor, starting to crawl back to each other and stitch together.

And Eddie sighed, finally, heavy, full, only catching a residual tremble on the tail end. 

When Richie spoke, he was surprised by the softness of it, a tone he’d never heard, a new voice. It felt honest, if out of body. “I know there’s nothing I could say right now to make you feel better right now, huh?” 

Eddie shook his head, eyes with too much leftover shimmer, blinking it out and dropping his gaze with a sad little smile. But a smile, a break in the misery, nonetheless. 

_ A smile, I won a smile? Golly gee. Must be doing something right. _

_ Keep doing it, win another.  _

“And that’s surprising, considering I usually have so much to say.” 

And there’s silence, and it’s comfortable. Finally, comfortable. The badness burnt out, talked out, dispelled for now. A safe, clean, private space on the couch between the two of them, a sanctuary far from prying eyes. Assumptions. Condemnation. Eddie sniffed and started to settle and Richie decided it was safe to, too, and follows suit. 

A strange sort of calm fell over them. The quietness after a storm, the scent of rain heavy as a reminder, but comforting. Eddie’s breath started to fall back into even rhythm as he blinked away the last of his tears, settling. The softening line of his body burned against Richie’s side, under his fingertips, excess heat from the meltdown rolling off him in waves. Richie watched him silently, circling a thumb along the ball of his shoulder, rubbing silent reassurance into his skin. 

After precious moments where nothing had to happen, Eddie glanced up. Met Richie’s eyes for maybe the first time that day. Hot dark whisky eyes, the kind that glowed sort of amber at the bottom of the bottle, the type that burned your throat pleasantly on the way down. The tip of his nose was still pink; there was a red line under his eyes along the path of his lashes, but he looked relaxed. Raw, but recovering. He looked okay.

And there was nothing Richie could say. Not a word either of them could say. 

Richie, suddenly, silently, kissed him instead. 

Maybe it would be a stupid move, in hindsight, but when Richie sank his fingers gently into the back of Eddie’s hair and made contact, he felt him melt like butter against his mouth, it felt, quite innocently, like the right thing to do. 

The way the bridge of his glasses dug into his nose was the pinch during the dream, but Richie didn’t wake up. A jolt ran through him, a crazed  _ what are you thinking, what on Earth are you doing, _ but oh, easy question. Going home. Kissing Eddie.

There was something like a whine that passed between their mouths, Richie realizing a beat too late that it was from Eddie, before the kiss turned consuming. Eddie surged to meet him, and Richie let his arms wrap around his middle, welcoming him in in a way he didn’t welcome anybody. That runoff energy turned electric as Eddie stole the reins, breath shaky when his hands reached to tangle in Richie’s shirt, almost a threat, that there would be trouble if Richie decided once again that now would be a good time to run away. 

But no, never. Richie was a downright idiot for a lot of things, for running at all, for not kissing him earlier, for doing it  _ now,  _ of all times— but dumb luck tended to land every once in a miracle while. Shellshocked, thrilled, Richie panted back into his mouth and leaned to return the weight, crazy from getting to taste him again, but Eddie yanked the rug out from under him and started to pull back. Richie scrambled for him, gasping, desperation wrapping a cold vice around his throat. 

“No, no, hey, don’t pull back—“ he pleaded, breath stolen. 

Richie snapped his eyes open to find Eddie’s boring into him, dark semicircles under his heavy brow. A little sound escaped him, and for a moment, Richie waxed humiliated, terror rattling around in his chest. 

“Says you,” Eddie huffed, and both of them were back there, back in Chicago when Richie ran away, and here in Los Angeles when he had the audacity to beg Eddie not to do the same. Eddie didn’t move, didn’t show any signs of leaving or diving back in, and in a flash of something like weakness Richie chased him, only for Eddie to flatten his palm and spread his fingers against his sternum and hold him off. “You can’t— you can’t,” Eddie tried, and it sounded almost like begging. 

Richie wrapped his fingers steadying around Eddie’s wrist, palm searing against his chest, but kept still as he could. “Can’t what?” 

“You can’t tease me like this, Richie, please.” He swallowed thickly, Richie unable to visually tracing the bob of his throat. “Please.” 

_ “Tease _ you?” Richie spat, baffled. He almost had the audacity to be insulted. He knew him better than that. “This is not me teasing you. Trust me, you’d know if I was teasing you. I tease you all the fucking time, this isn’t—” he swallowed the rest of whatever he was going to say. It wasn’t important. 

Eddie’s eyes seemed to shimmer for a moment, his shoulders sinking down in a sort of awe. All Richie had ever wanted, wrapped up in a soft, well loved t-shirt. He was tentative, searching Richie’s eyes for any sign he might be lying to him, not finding any. “Then what— then why—” Eddie shook his head, almost entirely losing his voice. “Why?” 

He set his hands securely on Eddie’s biceps. “Why?” Eddie shook his head, then shrugged, looking utterly lost, and Richie almost laughed. “Why am I kissing you?” 

He had the audacity to roll his eyes. “Yes!” 

“You’re as dumb as you are pretty, aren’t you?” 

Eddie stared at him, mouth barely hanging open, and Richie noticed a highlight picked out on his bottom lip, the faintest trace of spit. His. He felt drunk suddenly, but was endlessly glad, for once, that he wasn’t. His toes went numb, his face broke into a grin, and he started to lean in in a way he’d always, always wanted to. 

Eddie ducked away again, stiff arming him. “No— no fuck you! Wh— is this you telling me you’re gay? Is this how you’re going about it is this l— you can’t just kiss me to get that message across, if you’re— is that—” 

“Holy christ, Eddie,  _ no, _ this is not—”

“Oh, then you’re not?” he spat, challenging, but Richie knew it was a defense mechanism. That things, things that had been very careful and very rigidly in place for a very long time between them, were starting to break down, and Eddie was fighting it the same way Richie had tried to fight it back in that hotel room. “You’re straight, you just feel bad for me, is that it?” 

“What kind of straight guys do you know, Eddie?” Richie squeezed his scrawny little arm, looking him over with disbelief. “How many straight friends of yours just lay one on you when you’re feeling down?” He wet his lips, not letting his filter interfere, then continued, “God, if that’s the case, can you introduce me? I’d love to meet them.”

Eddie’s cheeks, already pink, went cherry red. Richie was working so hard trying not to kiss him again, trying to understand this interlude was necessary, but oh, was Eddie making it so hard. He squirmed back a little, belligerently refusing to accept it. “You’re actually starting to piss me off now. This is— this— you have no idea how much this complicates shit for me, asshole, I—” 

“Eddie, come the fuck on,” Richie said, actually half exasperated. 

“Just fucking say it if I’m so obtuse!” he barked, leaning in an inch in such a way that made Richie’s heart drop out his ass, head feeling light and airy. “Put it in simple fucking terms for me, smartass.” 

“Oh my fucking god,” Richie said, only as filler. He needed a second. There had been a lot of buildup. Hell. “I’m not straight, no, and no, I don’t just feel bad for you, and yes, I understand me kissing you right now is not going to fix the fact that the world is cruel and kind of completely against us and that you still need another job or that I ran out on you the first time because I couldn’t fucking reasonably believe that you weren’t just experimenting or something, but Eddie, I have wanted to to do this since—” maybe not all of it, Richie— “f-for way too fucking long, and my timing, I know, is awful, but I—”

The look Eddie was giving him punched the breath out of him for a second. His palm had softened against his chest, and Richie was sure he could feel the scattershot rhythm of his heart behind his ribcage. Maybe that was telling enough.

Richie felt exposed under that dark gaze, mouth cottony. “And, I, uh—” Honesty. Working on the honesty. “You, look at me, sometimes, and, it’s kind of amazing, actually, I forget everything I was gonna say. And that doesn’t happen often with me. Never, actually.” 

Eddie stared, as if searching for any trace of doubt in Richie’s face. There was none, Richie could say positively. If there was one thing Richie could be sure about in this whole ungodly mess, it was that he’d loved this stupid boy, one way or another, since the day they’d met. 

“God, you’re a stupid motherfucker,” Eddie spat, the venom in it just enough to sting Richie, the ferocity and buried sweetness when Eddie very suddenly dove back in to mash his mouth against Richie’s with little to no grace enough to completely soothe it away. 

It was dizzying, how much Richie had missed this after that first kiss. Minutes in that hotel room that left Richie branded, aching after that, thinking he’d have to live with that hollow in his life until the day he died, but here he was, kissing Eddie who tasted faintly like tears and confession, and Richie made it his goal to soothe all that residual hurt for the time being. He couldn’t kiss away everything, no, but fuck if he wasn’t going to give it a shot. 

Eddie was shaking like a leaf in the wind, and the way Richie wrapped his arms around him was so instinctual it hurt. Muscle memory from an action not yet taken, but something that could be learned. It had been written into Richie’s nerves forever, the want always there, but there were his hands, holding him, spreading between the flats of his ribs like his fingers fit there, like Richie was right all along in thinking they were meant to. It was as shy as it was eager, a gentle sort of restraint to Eddie, taught like a bowstring. Bundled kinetic energy. Very Eddie of him. 

Richie grinned against his mouth and Eddie  _ sighed, _ and it was his world for a moment. That rush of breath against his cheekbone, the symphony of his pulse in his chest and fingertips. Richie wanted to gather him up and tuck him close, then realized he could, and did. And Eddie came pliantly, some of the shyness giving way to the need to touch him. Submitting to the feeling. 

Richie pressed as much of it as he could into that kiss, as many words that he couldn’t bring himself to voice into the pressure of his finger pads against Eddie’s spine, telling him everything without saying it and hoping to god he’d pick up on it. He was no steadier than Eddie, trembling a little helplessly, knowing this was something big. Praying for it, again, to a god he hadn’t believed in for a long time. 

Don’t let it be fleeting. Don’t let this be a passing gesture, don’t let Eddie come to his senses.  _ Please,  _ Richie didn’t mind begging.  _ Please, hands and knees, head bowed, everything offered up. Please, this one. This one, please. _

Eddie was unpracticed, sweet, a little fumbling, and Richie was hopelessly tangled up in it. He didn’t seem to know where to put his hands, and Richie loved every second of indecision, every passing brush of his fingers and hesitant retreat, every little sink of his hands into his hair or against his chest or on his shoulders, letting him try any combination he liked while Richie held fast to him, because one of them had to or they’d fall to bits. He was small, like Richie remembered from every moment they’d ever been close, committing the shape of him to memory, but warm and alive under the thrum of his fingertips felt like everything. Richie was overwhelmed by the urge to hold him closer, closer, even when they were awkwardly pressed up against each other on the couch. Richie wanted to lean back and let Eddie blanket him, wanted to press forward and cage him in, but god forbid he scare him off. God forbid he do anything ever again but kiss him like this, chaste in a cautious way, a  _ we’re doing this right _ way. 

And if this wasn’t right, Richie was going to do everything wrong for the rest of his life. 

Eddie sucked in a gasp when Richie broke from his mouth to nose under his jaw, a hand going tense against Richie’s back. The warm press of his lips against his neck seemed to shock Eddie back into reality, Richie able to feel the resonating vibrations of his voice against his mouth. 

“I have to get on a plane in like— an hour, Richie—” he fumbled.

“Do you?” Richie hummed, nonplussed. Let him miss the flight. 

“I— yes! I have work tomorrow morning wether or not you keep kissing me!”

“Thought you got fired.” 

Eddie snorted and Richie beamed, liquefied brain sloshing around uselessly in his skull. “I can’t stand you.”

“You’ve always been such a bad liar.” 

Eddie scoffed, but relented after that, and Richie waited for silent permission before pressing a simmering little kiss against the thick tendon in his neck, insane over the way his spine arched, clicked, relaxed into it. 

Eddie let him kiss him back into the cushions for a moment more. Let Richie drink in the sweet scent of his skin, memorize the way his pulse felt quick and strong and rabbit-like under his lips and fingertips, let him have an inch before asking about the time, before they realized, that, actually, with reality seeping into the cracks of something that had started out so terribly and ended, for now, so heartbreakingly well, that Eddie was actually going to miss his plane if they wasted any more time reveling in this. 

When Richie worked up the courage to lift his head long enough to squint at the clock on the oven and reported the time to Eddie, he was all but pitched to the floor as Eddie scrambled to his feet to snag his things and race out the door. Richie dragged behind, blissful and hazy and desperate to cling to the feeling, but Eddie ushered him out the door the moment his things were gathered, the sound of it falling shut behind them feeling, somehow, anything but final.

Eddie had had to full out sprint through the terminal to make it onto the plane, his whole body still hot, a stress headache pounding in his temples. He was still struggling to shake the searing patterns Richie’s fingerprints had left on his skin when he was settled into his seat on the plane. 

It was nothing short of sheerly invigorating. 

He had to go home. He had to face the office in the morning. He had to find another job. He still had a lot to take care of and fret about, but Eddie, for maybe the first time, was too busy being content. He was beaming at the low, plastic-looking ceiling, head tipped back against the cheap vinyl plane seat, the wind knocked out of him in the most entirely delightful way. At twenty three with one treacherous but serious relationship under his belt, Eddie could safely say he’d been on one side of many kisses. Many one-sided kisses. Before it was sort of a task, it was upkeep, it was a sweet gesture, a confirmation. 

But that was fun. With Richie. It was more than fun, fun was a wading placeholder word, ankle deep, the rest of it coasting along the bottom of Lake Michigan. It was fun, that was true, but more than that. Yet that was remarkable in and of itself, it was allowed to be remarkable. It was _ fun.  _

He felt light and full, like something had clicked into place, a sore muscle that had been twinging in his neck finally relaxing and sending pleasant tingles down his spine. He curled his toes, sighed, relaxed, feeling it out. Aftershocks. His mouth tasted like the kiss, heavy and human on his tongue. He usually found himself minding the taste when he and Myra kissed, wanting to very discreetly duck off to the bathroom to rinse his mouth, something about it bothering him. But grossly, now, Eddie wouldn’t mind if the taste of Richie’s mouth on his lingered for days. He scrunched his nose, attempting to check himself and curb the thought, but it persisted. He tasted good. He kissed good. He was good, and even if it was just for maybe fifteen minutes after all those tears and strife, he’d been Eddie’s.

He was worried about all the rest. It felt like a lot had happened in an unbearably short amount of time, it felt like he’d dove into that fairly quickly. His emotions had been all over the goddamn place the entire trip, which he was going to have to factor in, and that was a lot to finally boil down into— but, sincerely, nothing could ruin his high. Not now.

Eddie hoped he could ride out the feeling for the rest of his life. 

Then again, if that were possible, there would be no drug addicts, no need to return to a substance over and over again to chase the high.

But people couldn’t get addicted to people, Eddie thought. Surely. 

It ached already, having to leave, especially so abruptly, considering that now there was no avoiding talking out a thing or two. The entire country and years of increasingly muddy history between them to navigate. Eddie had burning questions. Richie, as always, was very good at keeping the details close to his vest, but Eddie had to know. He felt, finally, as if he had a right to ask. 

They had a lot to work out before Eddie could feel secure in any of it. Eddie hated every mile he crossed on the flight back, hated every moment that would tick between them before that was worked out. 

But, suspended in the air on the way home with no semblance of where in the country he was, Eddie thought that limbo, if it was brief, didn’t have to be a bad thing. 

The dam had broken. Richie had kissed him, had kissed him then tried to keep kissing him three wonderful stubborn times while Eddie was making sure he actually meant it, and that— that had to be something. Eddie was great at hiding things from himself, but he had to be completely brainless if he didn’t realize that that meant something. That Richie felt something. That something was there. 

That Eddie wasn’t wishfully-thinking it into existence. 

That mere thought made him giddy, forced him to feel some type of way he never even allowed himself to hope for lest he hurt himself when he never got it. 

There was a chance, now, if there was ever. And just maybe he had permission to revel in even a slim possibility. 

Maybe this wasn’t a condemnation to misery, loneliness, a life lived cautiously and safely alone.

By nature, Eddie couldn’t help but crunch the numbers, fretting over the fact that there were still a million different ways this could blow up in his face or otherwise go wrong. But, a budding, hopeful part of him insisted, if he was talking probability, there was also at least a handful of ways this could go completely right. 

Considering he’d gone into it on the last plane ride thinking it completely impossible, for now, he could stand to take those odds. For now, even a sliver of a chance was enough. 

His fingers trembled as he lifted them to the side of his neck, brushing lighting over the spot where Richie had pressed frantic, reassuring little kisses into his skin. He hadn’t left a mark, Eddie had checked, but it felt like an underlying bruise, a reminder, a little signature on something. 

Privately, curled up in his cramped seat, Eddie was allowed to smile to himself.

He could stand to take those odds. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> absolutely gorgeous [fanart](https://idrawstuffyall.tumblr.com/post/632524656565518336/fanart-for-one-of-my-favorite-fics-i-left-my)  
>  by [@idrawstuffyall!!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/idrawstuffyall) i'm still beside myself about this illustration it is so lovely.   
> go check out all their wonderful art!!!
> 
> thank you guys so much for sticking with me through this thing so far. i cant even begin to say how much the feedback and love i've received on this means to me, and even the mere fact that anyone has stuck with reading this so far. almost to the finish line, thank you so so much!


	30. TINNITUS, AMONG SEVERAL (AND I MEAN SEVERAL) OTHER THINGS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year!! 
> 
> apologies in advance. took me two months, but tonight i offer you a chapter that is long enough to be a fic on its own. to anyone who's been waiting for this forever and wanted lots of content: here you go. to anyone who's just binged thic fic and has now stumbled upon this behemoth chapter: im so endlessly sorry. please go to bed.
> 
> two quick notes:  
> -NOTE THE CHANGE IN RATING: there is an explicit scene in this one!  
> -there's a brief mention of the events of 9/11 in this chapter, nothing extensive or major, but i wanted to give a heads up just in case. it's obvious when that's coming up by the date in the header of the scene, just letting you know!

**6 MAY 2000**

**ALBANY, NEW YORK**

**2:25 PM**

The first official meeting of the Losers Club and their new plus one commenced when Stanley Uris finally found out how beautiful Patricia Blum looked in a white dress. And, as promised, Stan nearly twisted an ankle stomping on that glass, jumping with both feet and landing with every ounce of his weight, pleased to hear it shatter. 

Without a bachelor party to plan, as Stanley had been averse to the idea despite all of Richie’s begging, Richie had been primarily in charge of wrangling the rest of their friends turned groomsmen (and subsequent bridesmaid). That, and the speech at the reception.

If he was being honest, like some of his more important stage performances, he couldn’t rightfully remember a word of what he’d said not an hour prior. He knew he’d delivered something, he knew some people laughed, he sat down, people clapped. He’d had notes, he hadn’t used them. Sometimes it felt like something else took over, he sort of blacked out, then he was back in his seat clapping for the next idiot on stage. No different here. But everyone had made it to the wedding dressed and unscathed, and he and Mikey had managed to sneak away and fasten a few strings of cans to the back of Stanley’s sedan unnoticed, so he figured he was at least doing an alright job as best man. 

He’d even made it through the ceremony without crying. So that was a win. 

Richie found himself positioned comfortably at the fringes of the reception with a beer in hand and a pleasant buzz, scanning the room for his friends. 

Not for the first time that evening, his heart jolted up into his throat. 

Beverly had wrangled Eddie onto the dance floor. 

They had talked. 

Richie had called two days after Eddie landed back in New York in March, and there had been a conversation. He’d opened rather feebly, started off asking how his flight and work week had been. Eddie had then, thank god, pried an awkward-if-necessary conversation out of him. It had somehow skirted around any solid confessions, but had included a somewhat long-winded and shaky explanation of bisexuality through a wandering metaphor involving David Bowie and Mick Jagger and a rather rocky agreement that it was cool that they’d kissed, and sure, maybe, if the chance so arose, they could do it again, if they wanted to, maybe, okay? cool. 

He realized with mild panic long after they’d hung up that he’d just come out to his best friend, which felt oddly unimportant after the everytfuckingthing else going on between himself and Eddie. But Eddie seemed to understand to the best of his ability, which was great, and didn’t really put much pressure on much else. The whole kissing incident (or maybe  _ incidents, _ if they were counting Chicago) hadn’t ruined their friendship, which was great. But they hadn’t exactly started anything new either. Maybe, for the time being, that was also a good thing.

_ I’ve wanted to do this for way too fucking long.  _

Still not a confession, but still kept Richie up at night thinking about the fact that he’d said that at all. Richie had been thinking about it for weeks, trying desperately to keep distracted in the near month and a half between that weekend and the wedding. He and Eddie had mutually decided there was no need to fly across the country to meet up personally when they’d be seeing everyone together in Albany, but that didn’t mean Richie hadn’t been sitting awake at night desperate to see him face to face again. 

He couldn’t keep from grinning to himself thinking about Eddie’s near bashful smile when he’d finally walked in, late from a delayed flight, at the rehearsal dinner. Richie had felt weak kneed all day seeing him all dressed up in his stupid rented tux, hair gelled to hell, old Hollywood handsome as ever. 

No change there as he watched Bev drag him around the dance floor. Eddie was trying valiantly to lead, but Beverly had him trapped in an uncoordinated sort of waltz, bobbing between other guests and narrowly avoiding stepping on toes. Richie actually heard the yelp and swear when Eddie inevitably nailed her pinkie toe, apologizing in a way only he could and somehow sounding more accusatory than sorry about it. She tugged at his collar and resettled her hands on his shoulders and Eddie turned them again in a circle, transgression forgotten, and in no time Beverly was laughing. Something surged up in Richie’s chest watching them, something old and fond and familiar, and he thought, for a split second, to ask to cut in. 

He realized quickly why that was a bad idea, considering (as delighted as he’d be to dance with Beverly), that she wasn’t his first choice for a slowdance. 

He swallowed the lump in his throat with a swig of beer, settling in to try and find some semblance of satisfaction in just watching the two of them instead. 

He caught Ben’s eyes from across the way, both of their gazes intersecting on the redhead and the firecracker at the center of the ballroom floor. Ben’s own beer was tight in his hand, cheeks pink and lingering on a half smile. Obvious in that sweet way he’d always been. He lifted his hand in a bashful wave at Richie, knowing he’d been caught staring, and it was all Richie could do to stare and wave stiffly back. 

His blood ran cold thinking he’d been caught in turn. He dropped his gaze into his beer bottle and took a drink, drowning the thought, but it didn’t go down without a fight. 

The terror of anyone knowing had been so sharp and loud for so long that Richie flinched thinking of it even now, even among his dearest friends. Somewhere in him he believed that they, at the very least, wouldn’t mind. He wasn’t entirely clear on everyone’s personal politics on the matter, but couldn’t imagine any of them would be  _ violently _ opposed to the thought of Richie’s moony eyes for his best friend. Not at this age. Maybe a little reflexive disgust when they were younger simply from where they were raised, but they were grown now. Had their own opinions. Were out of the pressure cooker of Derry. At worst, they might politely ignore the fact. At best (or maybe simply slightly less than worst, depending on how he looked at it), they might even be  _ (blech) _ proud of him.

Either way, Richie reminded himself, resorting to teasing Ben with an obnoxious gesture or two from across the room to suggest he cut in with Beverly, the time wasn’t now. The place wasn’t here. 

He watched Ben watch, watched him try and work up the nerve, then watched him sigh and duck off to talk to Mike, apparently not ready either. Eddie and Beverly danced and laughed and bickered until the end of the song, and Beverly made a beeline back toward the bar. Eddie was left to stand there silently for a moment, alone, in the middle of the floor, smiling in his soft silent fond way at his friends, and Richie, fearing another humiliating surge of emotion disappeared before Eddie could find him. 

A smoke and a second of silence wouldn’t be too bad. 

A gazebo sat perched at the edge of a little pond just out of the immediate line of sight from the ballroom on the grounds of the little event hall. Chipped white paint, amber string lights, a bench that wrapped around five of its six sides. A good enough refuge as any. Richie thumbed his pack and lighter out of the inside pocket of his jacket before shrugging it off and slinging it over his shoulder, wondering how he’d managed to keep from sweating through it all night. It was hot inside the ballroom and surprisingly cool outside, the sun having long sunk below the horizon. 

Richie laid his jacket over the back of the bench and sank down onto the swayed wood, stretching his legs out and digging the heels of his dress shoes into the floor to try and relax. The nicotine took the edge off the sharper thoughts parading around his head, fuzzing them, and he was allowed a few drags in pleasant silence, the music drifting out from the ballroom and blanketing him like thin gauze. Then came the telltale crunch of approaching footsteps. 

He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Eddie picking his way down the stone path to the gazebo, his own coat left behind. He straightened up and hesitated when he felt Richie’s eyes on him, slipping one hand into the pocket of his slacks. He was little more than a silhouette outside the immediate glow of the string lights, but slowly came into sharp relief as he made a cautious approach.

“Hey, hot shot,” he started, making Richie’s heart swing dizzyingly around his ribs, “you know you’re missing the party, you doing okay out here?”

Eddie, hands wrapping around a beer bottle, sank down quietly onto the bench next to Richie. He spared him a direct glance, instead staring out over the pond before them. It was ringed with the dark swaying silhouettes of cattails, dotted here and there with the glow of a firefly. The frogs hadn’t yet sank into the mud to hibernate for the year, still singing, the air still carried with it a certain lingering warmth even after the sun had set. They were reaching the height of summer.

Richie took a slow breath, gazing out over the reflection of the lights on the still dark water. Eddie, out of the corner of his eye, was now bathed in the amber glow of the string lights, the white of his shirt collar stark and crisp against his skin. “Yeah, Eds,” he said. “I’m doin alright.” He let his arm drape out over the back of the bench, cigarette loose between two fingers. 

The grass out here smelled wet and fragrant as if it had rained recently. Crickets hummed under the drifting music drifting out from the. It wasn’t so far away from the quieter nights back home, the humidity up here similar to that in Maine, sticky enough to make you sweat in the daytime, hanging around long enough to give a chill when the sun went down. 

Eddie hummed a mere acknowledgement, picking at the label of his beer. 

Richie heard a few licks of a Spanish guitar and smiled as Eddie lifted his bottle to his lips. “Didn’t think Stan was into ABBA.” 

Eddie swallowed, turning the bottle in his hands. “He’s not, not really.” He shrugged. “Lukewarm on them, I think.” 

“Warm enough to put them on his wedding playlist. Unless it was Patty. Could have been Patty, I always figured she had great taste.”

The frogs sang. The boys on the bench shifted slightly, not too close, not too far. 

“Not Patty,” Eddie said, still looking out over the pond. 

Richie slowly lifted an eyebrow. “Who was it, then, the Ghost of Christmas Past?”

Richie caught the eye roll out of the corner of his eye, Eddie looking just barely exasperated. “This is a Jewish wedding, Richie, come on.” 

“Fine, the Ghost of Hanukkah Past?”

Eddie, shaking his head, barely grinned around the rim of his bottle before taking another conservative sip. “No.” The smile wasn’t excited so much as nervous. He cleared his throat a little too loudly, trying to come off nonchalant. “You’re into ABBA.” 

“Admittedly so, yes.” Richie looked him over, the cuffs of his sleeves now rolled up, tie loosened, but only barely. Just enough to undo the top button of his dress shirt, which was still tucked in, waistcoat buttoned and neat. One of his dress shoes was untied. Richie shifted his gaze to his own feet, shifting them uneasily. 

“It’s a good song,” Eddie said lightly. 

“Yeah, I like this one.” 

“I know.”

The intro was brief, the song starting off a slow easy ballad.  _ Chiquitita. _ Richie listened to the melancholy lyrics of the first verse, wishing he had a drink in his hands if only to fiddle with the glass like Eddie. Who was, quite obviously, fiddling. Richie blinked a few times, sitting up slightly, understanding sinking in slowly. 

“I put in a request,” Eddie admitted, now looking at his own shoes. He ran his teeth over his bottom lip, looked up to the pond again, then finally at Richie. 

Richie’s heart swelled in his chest, the piano steady and rising in the song in the background. Eddie had always had a hard time masking that earnestness in his eyes, tonight no exception. Richie felt himself grin imperceptibly, hiding it behind a short drag. “Talking up the DJ, now, are we?” 

When Eddie stood up, Richie felt his breath halt, a little short, almost coughing. Eddie methodically set his beer bottle on the bench where he’d been previously sitting, tugged down the ends of his waistcoat, and extended a hand. 

Something flipped excitedly in Richie’s gut, not unlike a trout. He tried not to dwell on it, only sitting back on the bench in surprise, his cigarette falling from his fingers without a care. “Oh, you coy little thing—” 

“Get up or don’t, Richie, come on. We’ve only got three minutes.” 

Richie stared at Eddie for a moment, completely still save the hair at the back of his neck stirred by the breeze. He was backlit, not unlike an angel, flyaway hairs that escaped the assault of his hair gel the spines of a renaissance halo. 

Richie swallowed, ash fresh and dry at the back of his tongue. It was strange, finally being here. Being somewhere he’d hardly dared to dream about out of fear of never reaching it, preparing himself his entire life to be let down. “Eddie,” he ventured soberly, “are you wooing me right now?” 

His precious little face went pink, ears that still stuck out awkwardly on the sides of his head practically glowing. “I said three minutes, Trashmouth, I didn’t come out here to waste time.”

“I know for a fact this is a five minute song,” Richie said, feeling a smile finally take over his face. He was suddenly weak kneed, worried his legs would give out under him the moment he made to get up, leaving him a puddle on the dusty gazebo floor, something to be swept up with the confetti and rice later. 

Maybe Eddie knew, maybe that’s why he stubbornly clasped Richie’s hand and hauled him up himself. Richie locked his knees on the way up, pitching him forward and a little close to Eddie, who had to stumble back slightly to avoid overbalancing them both. There was an awkward shuffle and snicker from both of them, two awkward kids at prom. 

“Are y—”

“Yeah, I’m leading, dipshit,” Eddie said definitively, placing a hand securely at the small of Richie’s back and steadying him, clasping their hands together quickly as if to keep up his nerve. Richie couldn’t speak to nerves at the moment. His were all over the place, jumping like crickets, his free hand hesitating, halted in mid air. Eddie huffed and took matters into his own hands, literally, taking his right hand off Richie for a split second to guide it to the ball of his shoulder before replacing it on his waist, a little softer. “C’mon, it’s not rocket science.” 

Richie broke into laughter just as the first verse of the song started picking up, shifting his numb feet in his shiny dress shoes and feeling his entire brain light up. Hectic, nervous disbelieving. “I’ve never been berated into slow dancing before, I’ve gotta tell ya, Eds.” 

“You’re acting like you’ve never slow danced before,” Eddie muttered, eyes focused somewhere other than Richie’s face, apparently bashful. He looked golden in the muzzy lighting, skin pink and olive and tinged with color. He blinked, then raised his gaze to Richie’s eyes. “You have slow danced before, right?” 

Richie, despite being told so sternly he was not the one leading, took a short step backward and pulled Eddie along with him, happily surprised to see him follow smoothly. Maybe it was the shock that this was happening and the tiny voice in the back of his head telling him he was blackout drunk and simply tripped and drowned in the pond and was now in heaven that allowed him to do so, figuring there were no longer consequences in this dreamscape. “Yeah, dipshit, I went to homecoming once.” 

“Once?” 

“I never said I was an expert. You, on the other hand—”

“Yes I have,” Eddie barked, defensive. Richie’s chest surged with affection. Only Eddie could manage to be abrasive and tender in the same moment. “I— here.” He took the next step out to the side, guiding Richie by the waist with him, surprisingly fluid. “See? I said I was leading.” 

“You won’t hear me complaining,” Richie said, a little breathless, half in awe. Not five minutes ago had he been wallowing on the edges of the reception wishing for this, wanting more than anything to sweep Eddie off his feet and parade him around the hall like any of his friends could with Beverly. Leave it to Eddie to take the sweeping of feet into his own hands. 

“I’d better not, I thought this would be— nice.” 

“Nice? Wooing me?” 

He wrinkled his nose, not without having to hide a grin. “Whatever you want to call it.” 

“You asked the DJ to put on a song I like and  _ sought me out _ to dance with me,” Richie said, in part just to hear it aloud to make sure it was really happening. “I think that counts as wooing.”

“Well, are you wooed?” Eddie blinked up at him again, the question coming out so much more genuine than he’d intended. His eyes were nothing more than big brown semi circles under his upturned brows, something starkly vulnerable in them. 

A little twinge of emotion tumbled about in Richie’s chest, his hand wrapping more fully around Eddie’s as they turned about in a tight little circle. “Oh, baby, consider me  _ sufficiently _ wooed.” 

Eddie breathed out a little rush of a laugh and dropped his eyes to their feet for a moment, cheeks hot, grin a little shy. “Great. Mission accomplished.” 

“Really, Eddie,” Richie said, silently pleading him to look back up. He missed the look as soon as it was gone. He cleared his throat. “This— um. This is sweet of you.”

“Sweet?” 

“Yeah, I was— just thinking about it. I saw you dancing with Beverly and I was thinking about cutting in, but—”

“Yeah.” 

“I didn’t want to have to make it into a joke,” Richie admitted, realizing it for the first time aloud.

Eddie finally glanced back up at him. The guitar swang behind them, song a little distant all the way back inside the hall, pouring out over the rest of the grounds. Richie saw his throat bob when he swallowed, questions flitting around behind his eyes. “It’s— yeah. Me neither.” 

Humiliatingly, Richie thought he felt tears prick along his lash line, making him sniff and finally look away from Eddie himself. He was not going to cry about this. He could get emotional on his own time. Maybe in the shower tomorrow morning. Not now. The piano picked up, the first chorus washing over them like starlight, rocking easy back and forth between still-antsy feet. 

“This isn’t that much of a slow dance, I guess,” Richie said for something to say, letting their pace pick up slightly with the music, distracting himself. He felt warm and full, electric. Eddie’s hand was hot and present at his waist, small and strong. He liked how he could curl his fingers around the back of Eddie’s hand, cradle it. Eddie’s thumb stroked almost absentmindedly along the back of his and Richie swore he saw stars, shuffling closer. The chorus wound down back into the second verse and Eddie, resigning himself, rested his ear lightly against Richie’s collar. 

“I did my best,” Eddie sighed, his breath warm and shaky between the buttons of Richie’s shirt. Richie, on the other hand, could hardly find his own breath at all. He tipped his cheek gently against the crown of Eddie’s head just to ground himself, breathing in the scent of his hair gel, the stiff ends of his hair coarse against the shadow on Richie’s jaw. “I don’t have ABBA’s discography memorized, I just had to pick something.” 

Richie couldn’t think of anything more perfect. Fuck it. ABBA’s  _ Chiquitita, _ a song he hadn’t given much thought of in his life, generally, being more of a  _ Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! _ guy himself, might as well now be his absolute favorite song in the world. “Stick with me, baby, and we’ll fix that,” Richie said. 

Eddie lifted his head to scowl at him and Richie tried not to feel too devastated about it. “You’re not seriously trying to flirt with me by saying you’ll make me memorize ABBA’s discography.” 

Richie tried not to flounder like his stupid floppy trout heart. “I— uh— no. I’m also just doing my best here.” 

Eddie glared at him for only a moment more, examining his face, before softening and snickering once more. His head fell back to Richie’s shoulder, Richie’s cheek to his hair, and something in both of them clicked down, relaxed. They rose and fell with the rhythm of the song, swinging between a slow circle and a more of a prance, Eddie, warming up as they went, laughing more than once at Richie galloping along to keep up with him. Their sweaty hands stayed clasped, stayed tight to each other, wanting desperately to stay close, to not lose the momentum of the moment. Richie couldn’t help but mutter some of the lyrics under his breath, overwhelmed when Eddie locked eyes with him and softened visibly, their pulses quick in their chests and throats and hands. 

“Last time you danced with me you threw up,” Richie observed, then wished for the millionth time that he had any semblance of a filter.

Eddie looked appropriately offended. “What? No I fucking didn’t.” 

Once he’d started, Richie knew he was helpless to change tracks here. But with it came an odd sense of nostalgia, thinking back down the track that lead them to here and now. “Yeah,” he said, his own stupid smile audible in his voice, “at Stan’s that one time. We were dancing and then you barfed your brains out.” 

“We all danced on the roof in Chicago, idiot, that wasn’t the  _ last _ time.” 

And Chicago. Chicago too. Wow, was he so much luckier than he thought. “Okay, you didn’t puke that time, but you did that time at Stan’s. Chicago was probably much worse for you, I’m sure.” 

Eddie didn’t look directly at him, but the flush on his face spoke volumes. His fingers picked idly at the side seam of Richie’s vest. “You got your face bashed in first, came to my room for help, then I— yeah.” 

“Oh, you’re right. I guess I’m gonna have to find some poor schmuck to throw a good punch at me so you’ll kiss me again.” 

Eddie actually had the gall to look concerned and angry at the idea. He released his grip on Richie’s waist to jab at his sternum.  _ “Don’t _ fucking do that. Richie, do not be a fucking asshat, you don’t—” Eddie’s face burned. 

Richie beamed at him. “What’s the condition this time?” 

He nearly faltered, finger curling back into his palm as he wet his lips. “No— condition. We talked about it.” 

“And?” 

“And we said we could—again. If we wanted to.” Eddie’s eyes remained resolutely on Richie’s face, but the way they flickered down to his mouth for a split second was not lost on him.

It felt unfair, how much Richie wanted. He wanted everything. All of it, every kiss, every breath. He wet his lips, trying not to drown in the tides of his own wanting. 

Richie didn’t like to think of himself as much of a romantic. He hadn’t allowed himself to be for a long time, thinking it frivolous when he was actually secretly jealous of anyone comfortable enough with themselves to indulge in that silly kind of happiness. It had eased a little, with Sandy, in that safe umbrella of being a guy with a cool girlfriend and being allowed to love her loudly and publicly, but Richie found himself shying away from romance even privately since. The same worries from high school surging up in the back of his mind, the same permissions he’d worked so hard to give himself rescinding. 

Then he’d kissed Eddie. Really kissed him, this time, not like in Chicago. Kissed him to really tell him something, to really mean something, and now here he was, sweating bullets and wanting desperately to do it again. The private romantic in him absolutely swooning at the thought of kissing Eddie Kaspbrak to ABBA’s  _ Chiquitutita, _ a mercifully long song that Eddie chose himself for the express purpose of dancing with him, which Richie truly didn’t feel like he deserved. He felt lightheaded in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant, locked under Eddie’s heavy gaze, ever intense like he was, and it was no longer a surprise that his voice trembled when he finally asked. 

“Do you—?” 

Eddie went up on his toes and pressed his yes against Richie’s mouth, effectively cutting him off. 

It clicked then, a third-time’s-the-charm sort of thing. There was no hitch or hiccup. Eddie’s arms looped around Richie’s neck and Richie tugged him in, intoxicated by the way he fit in his arms when he wrapped them around his waist. It was like angels singing in the background, a choir over the piano, and while in reality Richie knew it was ABBA it was allowed to be angels because this kind of thing was deserving of a chorus of angels. 

Richie kissed him like he’d always been dying to kiss him, like he’d imagined in moments of perceived weakness for years on end, slow and deep and spinning. He let go of something he didn’t think he could and worked on instinct, pressing his tongue just gently at the seam of Eddie’s lips and feeling him open up to him, soft and wanting. His hands fit maddeningly easily around Eddie’s waist, fingertips dipping in like they were meant to at the small of his back, and Eddie must have felt it too by the way he melted and sighed. Richie was lost to it instantly, sparking and swaying and drunk on the way Eddie kissed him back, still exploring the newness of it, the novelty of being allowed to. It took one easy press of his teeth into Eddie’s bottom lip, nothing pressing or mean, but heavy enough for Eddie to shift and murmur against Richie’s mouth, cautious.

“We shouldn’t— we shouldn’t for too long.” But he sure as hell didn’t make any move to stop. 

“Uhuh,” Richie mumbled, unconvinced, and tipped his head to the side to sink deeper into the kiss, Eddie going in easy right along with him. He moved a centimeter to the left to kiss at the corner of Eddie’s mouth, wondering for a moment if it would ever be enough if he could kiss every inch of him. Probably not. He’d want to do it again, again, all the time. He let himself trail down to Eddie’s jaw, taking liberties, happy and easy under the bright licks of piano, riding them out to the end of the song. He pressed one little kiss against the side of Eddie’s neck, crazy suddenly about the taste of his skin, still hardly able to believe this was happening. 

Eddie’s breath stuttered, his fingers gathering the silky fabric at the back of Richie’s vest into a tight fist before releasing it, smoothing his palm over it. Richie felt his throat bob against his lips when he swallowed, felt the vibration when he spoke.“In case— c— someone—”

“Mm,” Richie hummed. 

With a quick press of the lips back on the corner of his jaw, Richie abandoned Eddie’s neck and sealed his lips back over Eddies, cradling the back of his head as his jaw tipped upward and he hummed too, silenced. 

“M—mhm.” 

Richie thumbed over the shell of his ear and felt him settle into his chest, holding him up and close. A different Richie in a different time would have curled into a ball at the thought of someone catching them, catching him with a boy in his arms, blood hot and quick under his skin, but this Richie, right then, sincerely couldn’t have cared less. He had so much lost time to make up for, the prospect of being seen, for now, wasn’t going to stop him. Not in the privacy of this shared starlight. Not in their own little shelter away from the rest. Not for the next couple minutes, fleeting as they were. He could cling to that for now, the fear could creep in like morning sunlight tomorrow. 

The song died and another began, something neither of them paid a lick of attention to. They went on kissing for a few brilliant little moments more and broke apart naturally, eyes closed, breath full and heavy. Richie shivered at the feeling of Eddie’s breath skating across his. They both ducked into each other, still for a second, before a little sway brought them rocking back and forth on light feet. Still dancing, just a little. Not wanting that to end either. 

“Have you told anyone?” Eddie asked eventually, words mushed slightly into Richie’s shoulder.

Richie lightly shook his head, burying his nose somewhere behind Eddie’s ear. “No.” Although he couldn’t be sure if that meant no one knew. Ben had been watching him closely in the reception hall, could have noticed the same yearning in his glance that he held for Beverly when the two of them were dancing. “I don’t— think we need to. 

Eddie’s throat sounded dry when he swallowed. “Bev knows I’m gay.” His breath shuddered slightly. “I told her right before I broke up with Myra.” 

Richie let that sink in for just a second. “Really?” When Eddie didn’t respond after a moment, he let his hands fall back down to his hips, holding him close but less tangled, to watch his face. 

Eddie lifted a shoulder, not looking directly at him. “I don’t— I don’t know why her specifically. She was great about it, though. Maybe it was because she wasn’t there that night, when um.” He scratched at his hairline, sniffing. “When things went kind of sideways.” 

“Yeah.” 

“I think I wanna tell Ben. About— about me. I don’t have to tell him about—”

Richie swallowed. “Us?” 

“Us, yeah.”

They started to still slightly. Just talking. Richie ignored the rapid thrum of his heart, his nerves serging. “Do you think you’re gonna come out to everyone?” 

“I think eventually, yeah. I trust everyone, I’m just— I’m not ready.” He sounded a little reserved. This was hard, Richie realized. Still exceptionally hard. The wound was still raw for Eddie, especially after the job. 

Richie nodded. “Yeah, I get that.” 

“What about you?”

What  _ about _ him. His throat felt dry. Maybe the smoking. Maybe he needed a beer. 

Maybe he owed Eddie a little vulnerability here. 

Richie bucked up the best he could, still holding on to Eddie. Maybe for support, maybe to comfort, he couldn’t tell at that point. “I— I honestly never planned to, I didn’t think I’d really have to. I mean I was with Sandy for so long, I just kind of figured I could make it work with a girl and no one would ever have to know.” 

Eddie blinked up at him. 

Richie felt like he owed him a lot. More than words could say then. 

“But um. I might. Slowly.” 

Something in Eddie brightened, just slightly. “Yeah.”

Something made Richie want to smile. “Yeah.” 

“It’s—not so bad. I know I’ve only told Bev and— and you, but. I think maybe it gets easier. At least with friends.” 

“Yeah.” 

Eddie fidgeted slightly, trying to shake the awkwardness. It wasn’t like either of them could talk to many people about this, it was all fairly unexplored territory. “I do feel a little better. That’s such a cheesy thing to say but— I— I don’t know. I got really sick of hiding it from myself, so I think eventually I’ll just be sick of hiding it period. But for now its— private.”

“Yeah, no. Yeah.” 

“This— this can be private too, if you want.”

_ This. _ So this was— this. Richie felt like nervous teenager again, stomach swooping. He tried to play it off, lifting his shoulder and nodding. 

“I’m cool with private.” Cool, relieved, scared— everything. 

“Okay.” 

“For— now. I mean we— we can take our time, Eddie. This doesn’t have to be a big thing.” 

“Yeah, yeah that’s— what I was thinking.” 

“No, yeah.” 

“Yeah.” 

They locked eyes again, then dropped contact, then snickered, and it really was like it was homecoming. Embarrassing, sweet, all at once. They talked over each other and laughed again. 

“Well— uh.” 

“We should probably—”

“Right.” Richie’s snicker was a little hectic. 

Eddie glanced over his shoulder, hands fidgeting as he took a step back from Richie. “Before someone notices.” 

“God forbid. No one wants two queers getting friendly in the gazebo at their wedding, right?” 

Despite himself, Eddie barked a laugh and socked a punch into Richie’s bicep. “Speak for yourself, dick for brains.” 

  
  


Eddie was buzzing. Some kind of confidence had burned itself into him like a brand somewhere throughout the night. Once he’d decided to seek Richie out, to dance with him, it was all over. He took his hand as they chatted and padded back up toward the hall, satisfied by the thin cover of darkness between the gazebo lights and that spilling out onto the grass outside the ballroom. 

Neither of them noticed the shadow hidden by one of the pillars on the little patio outside the building, a silhouette stepping out just slightly as they approached, slowly so as not to frighten them. 

“You know, I pictured myself asking ‘how’s the happy couple’ on my own wedding night, but here we are.” 

Eddie jumped a clear mile and Richie stopped cold in his tracks, releasing Eddie’s hand like it burned, only to find Stanley standing at the edge of the porch, alone, hands in his pockets, suit coat draped over one shoulder. 

“Nothing—” Eddie said automatically. He winced a second later, guilt slathered across his features. 

“Stan!” Richie tried to recover for him, overly chipper. “There’s the man of the hour—”

Stanley calmly held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t, Richie, it’s fine.” 

A strange sort of terror ran through Eddie’s blood. “Stanley,” he said, a little hollow, and Stanley looked at him kindly. “I—” 

“You don’t need to explain yourself, Eddie, it’s okay.” 

Richie was stiff next to him, his breath sounding heavy in his nose. Eddie opened his mouth to explain himself regardless but Richie held out a hand to stop him, and he clammed up.

He held his hands up, palms out, resigned. “You caught me, Stanny boy.” Richie sighed. 

“I’m honestly surprised you guys took this long,” Stanley admitted. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Eddie squawked, indignant. “Wh— Richie, I thought you said you didn’t tell anyone—” 

“He didn’t need to, Eddie.” 

Eddie looked back and forth between them, feeling oddly betrayed, but Stanley cut him off again. 

“I’ve known something was going on between you two since we were kids, it was only a matter of time. And I’ll make this short, I’m not here to embarrass either of you, but—” he dragged a thin hand down his face, but Eddie didn’t miss the tiny grin. It tugged at one of the little crescent scars at the edge of Stan’s jaw, some long forgotten childhood accident. “At my  _ wedding?”  _

“Nothing _ happened—”  _

“Oh, we kissed like, months ago, this is not fresh,” Richie said, and Eddie nearly stomped on his foot. 

“What the fuck!” 

“He already knows, what’s the point!” Richie said. He dropped his shoulders, looking to Stanley pleadingly. “Stan, I promise we’re just— we’re figuring it out.” He fidgeted for a moment, looking to Eddie, who was in a weird shocked state of silence, then slipped his hands into his pockets. “I meant to tell you—” 

“I’m not worried about that,” Stanley said. “I just want both of you to know I refuse to pick sides if anyone’s heart gets broken by this, and I expect you both to handle this like adults. I’m not gonna have you two screw each other over, okay?” 

“Very positive and trusting, Stan,” Richie grumbled after the ensuing silence. 

“W—” Eddie pressed his fingers to his temples. “I’m still— Stan.” 

“Yes?” 

A strange sense of paranoia was rising in the back of Eddie’s throat. He tried very valiantly to hide the way his voice shook when he asked. “You— you knew?”

Stanley had this way of looking at a person like he could see through their skin, through their chest, directly into wherever they kept their deepest darkest secrets. He turned that gaze on Eddie, examining him, knowing him in a way that made Eddie feel unzipped. He blinked, easing up, his hands slipping non threateningly into his pockets. 

“Unfortunately for you, Eddie, Richie is one of the most obvious people on the planet. I think if you look back even you might find a couple hints—” 

“Alright alright alright—” Richie begged, holding his hands out in front of him. “Stanley, I pinkie promise not to let Eddie break my heart, god willing. If you could— maybe— it’s new. I’m not ready—” 

Stan raised his eyebrows. “Oh, no, I don’t plan on telling anyone. I just thought it was fair to let you both know I knew.” 

Both of them sagged with relief, Richie dropping a heavy hand to Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie felt picked clean suddenly, bone tired in a way he hadn’t noticed until just then. It had been a long day. 

“Thank you, Stan,” he said, voice unintentionally quiet. 

Stanley looked at him fondly. It made Eddie want to both hug him and squirm away at the same time. “Don’t thank me yet. I will be forwarding you the medical bills to take care of the migraines I know this is going to give me.” He stood up straighter, looking between the two of them. “I’m gonna get back to my wife.”

“Any excuse to say it, huh Stanny?” Richie asked, smiling in a way that also made Eddie want to squirm. 

Stan looked back at him soberly, dead serious. “Yep.” He turned to go without another word, leaving the two of them alone once again on the porch.

Dry mouthed, Eddie watched him duck back inside the banquet hall, feeling shaky and feeble. The crickets seemed to grow louder once Stan had retreated, the music coming from inside still sounding far away. It was almost as if his ears were ringing, something buzzing around the inside of his head, an electric current that wouldn’t die down. “Why do I feel like I’m gonna throw up?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the back door of the hall. 

“Yeah,” Richie said, patting his shoulder sympathetically. “Tell me about it.” 

The reception carried on for maybe another hour afterward, the losers the last to leave after Stanley and Patty made their grand exit for the first time as Mr. and Mrs. Uris. Eddie lingered around once the rest of the guests had cleared out to help clean up and make sure everything was settled before finally rounding up Richie, who wanted to be a good best man and make sure everyone got back safe and sound, and heading back to the hotel themselves. 

It was a quick walk to the hotel, a quiet elevator ride, and an intentionally slow walk down the hallway to Richie’s room.

“So,” Richie said, none too casually knocking a shoulder against the doorframe. He nearly missed it, half stumbling to catch himself and recovering. “This is mine.” His voice cracked, he had to clear his throat. 

Eddie’s blood was buzzing under his skin. Richie gave him a dorky little grin, effectively shattering any attempt at coolness and giving way to the dorky awkward kid Eddie knew. Eddie sucked on his cheek, rocked back on his heels. “It is.”

Eddie had had plenty of time to drink him in during the reception, to try and memorize the way he looked in that suit. Tall, square, sharp, the coat thrown casually over his arm, the tie loosened, the top button of his shirt undone, the way his vest hugged his waist and his slacks sat on his hips. The nice suit, the same dorky glasses, the eternal flyaway hair, the pretty grin. Eddie’s mouth was dry. 

“Do you wanna come in?” Richie cleared his throat again, thumbing toward the door. “For like. Coffee or something?”

“Coffee?” Eddie asked, crossing his arms. The damned smile wouldn’t go down. Neither would his pulse. “Is that what you call it?”

Richie shifted, ansty. Eddie would be forever grateful that he was so visibly nervous about this. Had he pulled off any semblance of suaveness Eddie would be a puddle on the ugly hotel carpet. Maybe that’s why he liked Richie so damn much. He was still standing, still smiling, even if his knees were a little wobbly. Richie sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and let it roll out under the slight press of his front teeth; Eddie watched it, having to clear his throat himself. 

“Yeah, or— something. Whatever. Whatever you want, I mean, I’m not exp—”

“Nah,” Eddie said with a finality he didn’t expect from himself. But he stood by it a second later, lifting a shoulder. It felt right. “Not this time.” 

“Oh,” Richie said. Short, breathy, but something heavy in it. An odd mix of disappointment and reluctant hope. 

Eddie toed at the carpet, a little reluctant himself. It was a bad idea, something he wasn’t going to cave to tonight, but he was a little sad to leave regardless. “I’ll— catch you at breakfast tomorrow before I head out, how’s that sound?” 

Richie rubbed the back of his neck, ruffling up the fledgling curls there. Eddie felt warm just looking at him, lanky, awkward, handsome, Richie. “No objections here, cap-i-tan.” 

“Okay.” Eddie rocked back on his heels, clasping his elbows behind his back. “But— um. Maybe sometime you can come see me. In New York.” 

“We’re in New York,” Richie observed, a stupid little glint in his eye. 

“The  _ city,  _ moron,” Eddie said, unable to keep from rolling his eyes. “My place. Just— whenever.” 

Richie shrugged, tipping his head to the side good naturedly. A nonverbal _ worth a shot. _ “Yeah, Eds, I can drop by to visit an old pal on my next big national tour.”

“Right, can’t forget the little people, huh, bigshot?” 

“You’re only little in stature to me, Eds.” 

Eddie sighed heavily, Richie snickered. “Jesus Christ, you’re lucky you’re cute.” 

That seemed to knock Richie off kilter slightly. His face colored, arms going a little stiff. His laugh turned shy. Eddie loved him. “I’ll come by. Pinkie promise.” 

Eddie very seriously held up a fist, extending his little finger. Richie beamed, stepping forward to link pinkies with him, a firm little shake solidifying the promise. 

“Cool,” Eddie said. 

“Wicked,” Richie said. 

“Can I kiss you one more time?” 

Richie looked as if he’d been caught in the headlights of an eighteen wheeler. Eddie was disgustingly endeared to him, heart tittering away in his chest, happy to have a smidge of an upper hand here. Leading. He raised his eyebrows challengingly, expecting Richie to sputter, but was met instead with arms wrapped around his waist and soft lips against his mouth. Richie sort of swept him up, bending him back slightly over his hands at the small of his back, a half dip, and the hallway swung. It was brief but encapsulating; Eddie was the one who felt dizzy and brainless when Richie righted him and inched back, grinning like a fool. 

“Yeah, I guess that would be okay,” Richie said, not without a quick glance back and forth down the hallway to make sure no one had seen. He knocked a fist gently against Eddie’s shoulder. “What’s a few goodnight kisses between friends?” 

Eddie slapped him solidly on the sternum and Richie jumped, laughing. “Fuck you.” 

“Really?” 

Eddie firmly lost his grip on the upper hand when he sputtered again. “No! Not right— no!” 

“Not right now?”

_ “Not right now, _ go to bed.” He shoved at Richie’s shoulders to usher him back toward his room. 

“So there  _ is _ a chance.” 

_ “Bed,  _ Richie,” Eddie said, burning. 

“Yes _ sir,”  _ Richie said, a snide smitten little smile on his smug face. His back his the door and he fumbled behind him for the handle. “Goodnight, Eddie.” 

“Fuck you very kindly, Richie.” Eddie straightened his vest which didn’t need straightening, still hotly aware of how Richie’s hands had fit around him. He cleared his throat as he turned. “Sweet dreams, dipshit.” 

“Only the sweetest, darling.” Richie dug his key out of his pocket, giving Eddie one last glance over his shoulder. “I’ll catch you on the flipside.” 

Richie very nearly missed Eddie the next morning, catching the tail end of breakfast, having slept like a baby for the first time in a few months. Sweet dreams indeed. He saw him and the rest of the losers off with hugs here and there, promising to call, promising to visit, promising, as always, to stay in touch. 

He thought he caught Eddie’s lingering little look as he clambered into his frail old red Civic and prayed to god it wasn’t wishful thinking.   
  
  


It didn’t feel like it when Eddie greeted him less than a month later, tucking him into his arms and practically jumping him at the door.

Several things changed over the summer of 2000. 

Eddie had, miraculously, found both a new job (albeit with a much smaller paycheck than the last, but enough to get by) and a master’s program with good scholarships and a late application deadline that accepted him for the Fall. 

Bill, who had stayed with Mike for a few months in Derry in the librarian’s apartment, had moved to Bangor to be closer to a publishing company taking increasing interest in the new novels he’d churned out in his short time in his hometown. There were talks of a movie deal. Bill was quiet about the whole thing, but Mike was bittersweet to report that things seemed to be taking off for him. 

Mike himself was fairly quiet. He mentioned he was working on a research project in Derry. No one, genuinely, wanted to press him further on the subject, and couldn’t quite place why. 

Ben had begun to travel the world, having taken an opportunity to work with a more senior architect on a project in London. A prolific firm in Austin had their eyes on him. 

Beverly was working with a few friends from school on starting their own label. Kay was mentioned to be involved in some way shape or form, and had reassured Eddie when he asked once that Tom was, decisively, not, and hadn’t bothered them in some time. 

Stanley and Patty were renting an apartment together in Albany, but Stanley had mentioned once or twice that they may not be there long, as he’d been talking to a potential employer elsewhere. They were trying already for a baby, but Patty told Eddie not to mention that to anyone else. She didn’t want any excitement, but was fine with him knowing. He was flattered, flattered and excited almost to tears about the whole thing, and maybe checked up on her a little too often for news. There was none yet, but they were hopeful. 

Richie was picking up gigs and taking less and less hours at his day job, evidently making headway when it came to working with whatever writers Steve had gotten him on board with. He was starting to pick up more gigs around LA, meeting names that weren’t quite household, but getting close, and charming the pants off of them. Connections, baby, he said once. Connections.

And he was visiting. 

Richie arrived in the rain a few weeks after the wedding, having frantically saved up tip money for another plane ticket, and Eddie, evidently, had a little trouble containing his excitement upon seeing him.

“I fucking hate planes,” Richie said, breaking the odd ebbs and flows of tensions as he shakily pressed further into the refuge of Eddie’s apartment, shedding his damp denim jacket. 

_ Too bad,  _ Eddie thought, watching him start to settle in.  _ Make this a habit now. I like the way you look here too much.  _

_ Good god,  _ Richie thought, more simply, less urgently.  _ Here he is. _

For Richie, things had always been slow. He’d been playing a long game for a long time, one with no promise of resolution. Resolution, in fact, was sometimes scarier than the idea of sitting back and pining for the rest of his life.

But, it seemed, the game lead him here. Awkward, wet, practically trembling faced down with the first boy he’d ever fallen in love with. A boy he’d known, in one way or another, that he was in love with for years now. The lines were blurry, crushfeelingslonginglove, but the fact was definite. Richie could feel it in his bones like he always had, scaryfamiliar, making him oddly weak kneed in front Eddie, this close, physical again for the first time since things had Changed. 

And it was apparent, glaringly so, the entire afternoon into the night. 

Things had Changed. What now. 

Richie felt, for all intents and purposes as they sat closebutnottooclose on the couch that night, both thinking entirely too loudly about the last time they were on a couch together, tangled. Thinking about the gazebo, about the hotel hallway. About the promise of more but the question of how. Even with all that reassurance, all those moments, Richie struggled so much as to work up the gusto to sling an arm around Eddie’s shoulders, to touch him again.

After too much silence and idle conversation and neither of them paying attention to whatever they’d put on the television, Richie took an all too shuddery breath and rested his hand over the back of the couch. Eddie made no move of repulsion, no move to inch away. But he didn’t lean in either.

It was a slow start. 

It took until the final few scenes of a movie Richie would never recall watching before he let his fingertips so much as brush the shoulder seam of Eddie’s shirt. He watched, breath caught in his chest, as Eddie tensed, relaxed, attempted to feign casual. 

_ He kissed you first, you’ve loved him longer, do something about it. _

Richie dropped his arm heavily over Eddie’s shoulders. It was different now, definitive, corporeal. Eddie nearly jumped, then turned his big open gaze toward him, also different, also new, gave him a differentnew look, wet his lips. 

“You look like you want to kiss me or something,” Richie said, genuinely bewildered. 

Eddie’s expression soured sweetly. “No shit, Sherlock.” Richie barked a laugh and Eddie tried to correct himself, thinking himself rude. “If that’s— cool.”

“I thought we established it was ice cold, Eds.”

Even so, Richie felt the need to clarify. 

And even so, Eddie still made a precious habit of asking. 

And every time they did, every time Eddie asked and Richie said  _ of course, dipstick, _ and  _ I’m gonna keep saying yes, _ and then they  _ did,  _ Richie felt as if he was freefalling out of a plane. 

Maybe not in a bad way? He wasn’t sure. He had no clue if the parachute worked, if this was skydiving for fun or a hail mary or a suicide attempt. 

Very adult of Eddie, though, to ask. Richie’s previous experience with this kind of situation (if anything could compare, sheesh) was a hush hush approach. Drunk and disorderly kisses, bad sex between bouts of  _ you won’t tell anyone about this, right? _ . No confirmation nor denial of anything happening.

Boys didn’t ask Richie if it was okay if they kissed like they wanted it to be a regular, normal-person kind of thing. God forbid they kiss and word get out.

They kissed on the couch in New York that evening with the summer rain slanting against the window, kissed long and slow and easy, still sinking into it. Meeting in the middle this time. Richie wanted slow, was alright with easy, worried that if things happened any quicker he’d wake up alone back in California slobbering all over his pillows. 

_ Five,  _ Eddie thought then. _ We’ve kissed five times. Chicago, his place, twice at the wedding, once here. Five whole times.  _

“Should we be adults about this and like— establish boundaries?” Richie said eventually into the dark silence of the room once they’d broken apart, brushed teeth, changed into pajamas. 

“What, like draw a line down the middle of the mattress with tape?” Eddie wrinkled his nose. “Christ, Richie, come on.” 

_ “No, _ dipshit, not literal boundaries. Shit like— we can kiss. But—” 

“But what?” 

“But not rush it?” 

Rush it. Eddie wondered what  _ it _ was. Eddie felt, daringly, maybe a little excited about what  _ it _ was. But mostly squirmy and uncoordinated and trepidatious. “Um. Okay,” he started, feeling too conscious of how Richie’s knee bumped against the side of his leg. “So kissing is okay. But we’re not—” 

Silence. Eddie hoped Richie would finish, confirm. 

Eddie swallowed thickly. “I mean we’re not—” 

“No, we don’t have to be.” Eddie heard Richie swallow too, imagined the bob of his throat in the darkness. Felt warm. “Dating.” 

“No, we don’t— no.” 

“We can just kiss.” 

“Yeah.” 

“And I—” Richie hesitated. 

Eddie tensed. Eddie waited. Richie was quiet. 

“And you?” 

He heard the tremble in Richie’s next breath. Eddie counted quick rabbit heartbeats, heard the sheets shift, then felt Richie inch closer. He felt dizzy and brilliant, and Richie gently eased an arm over his waist, resting his head next to Eddie’s on one pillow. Sharing, like they were taught in kindergarten, sort of. 

“Can I— I mean can we—” 

Automatically, sutpiddesperately, Eddie wrapped both hands around the arm that lay draped across him to silently beg for it to stay there. “Yes,” he breathed, wishing he didn’t sound so wrecked about it. “Yes, please.” 

“Okay.” 

And that was enough.

The kissing became a habit. A good one, a healthy one, Eddie thought, one that he enjoyed with his whole self. Again, the next night,  _ (six) _ easy but new, enticing. Promising. And they sat closer, with this new delicate permission. And they slept close, slept tucked up against each other, even negotiated at one point whose arms should go where so it was more comfortable. 

That was more than enough. 

Enough, for now, but Eddie could feel a clawing, terrifying sort of hunger beginning to grip him every time Richie stroked his thumb across his skin, pressed his teeth, the final morning of his visit when he kissed him in the kitchen  _ (seven), _ teasingly into his lip, chased the taste of him with his tongue. 

Richie left, Eddie went back to work, life went on, they spent all of their free time thinking of each other and none of it admitting that to one another. God forbid they come off clingy. 

**JUNE**

came, summer crested, muggy in New York, hot in California, and they carried on like old friends. 

Sort of. Kissing aside, maybe. 

Eddie flew out to LA, Richie flew into New York, they quietly savored every inch of skin that came in contact with each other. They slept tucked close together without quite spooning, sat with cautious arms around each other on the couch. Once in 

**JULY**

, thrillingly, Richie rested his free hand on Eddie’s knee as he sped down the freeway in LA. He’d been wearing shorts; at one point, Richie’s pinkie had dipped barely under the hem, his fingerprints and the heat of his broad palm searing into Eddie’s skin in a way he thought about, craved, for weeks after. 

They went to diners together but not  _ together, _ they bickered over breakfast, they spread separate towels over the sand and applied sunscreen to themselves and took the loss for the sunburn on the spots they missed, they snuck private glances at each other and thought themselves safe, they pretended their feelings were skin deep and new and clean and simple. 

It wasn’t dating, what they were doing. Just shy of it, but definitely not. Because Eddie bought his own ticket when they went to the movies even if Richie bought the popcorn and they shared, because everyone shared popcorn. So that wasn’t a date, even if Eddie still jumped and gripped Richie’s arm in the dark back row of the theater watching  _ What Lies Beneath. _ That was pure habit. Childhood friends. Something they did all the time as kids, going to scary movies together. 

It wasn’t a date when they barhopped or showed up to parties together in LA, because Randy was almost always there with them, or one of Richie’s other friends. It wasn’t a date when Richie fell asleep on Eddie’s shoulder on the subway ride home from a long muggy day traipsing around Times Square, despite the butterflies and moths and june bugs and all matter of winged insects that flitted around Eddie’s stomach, and it still wasn’t a date when Eddie did the same on the couch later that night after cooking dinner together. It didn’t make it a date if Eddie woke up and padded barefoot out of Richie’s bedroom, where he’d started sleeping after he’d realized the couch made his back ache (and it was only partially an excuse) in one of Richie’s shirts to find Richie making them breakfast, on account of the fact that Richie simply liked to cook and his shirts were bigger and more comfortable for Eddie sleep in. 

It wasn’t a date even when they linked pinkies in the rickety elevator on the way up to Eddie’s apartment, even when Richie swept him up against the inside of his door and kissed  _ (twenty seven)  _ him as soon as it fell shut, like that, like he really liked him, again and again. 

They kissed under the warm string lights in Richie’s bedroom, through electric summer thunderstorms in Eddie’s apartment, across the miles between them whenever they had the chance. 

Richie, by any measure, was a stupidly good kisser. Eddie found himself burning for him even when they weren’t touching, when Richie was twenty feet away puttering around in the kitchen doing nothing of any real significance. 

It was some new brand of petrifying. 

Richie would wander out of the bathroom in Eddie’s apartment with wet hair in fresh pajamas and Eddie would have a sudden grating desire to crawl all over him like some bothersome kid. He savagely savored breathing in the scent of his skin, driven mad just by the way he smelled, his deodorant or his shampoo or maybe just him, underneath it all, masculine and him. 

Eddie remembered admiring Myra here and there, able to acknowledge that she was pretty. Her softness, her curves, the smoothness to her skin, the sweet stickiness of her chapstick against his mouth. All admittedly nice things, good things, but things that Eddie merely admired, as if from a distance. 

Richie, on the other hand, made him feel slightly unhinged, shaking up a wild thing within him he’d never known was there. There was the rasp of his leg hair against Eddie’s when they both slept in just boxers and t-shirts in the California heat that made his skin tingle all over, the prickle of his stubble against his cheeks, lips, neck in morning kisses  _ (thirty nine forty forty one) _ that made him feel more alight and awake than any bitter cup of black coffee ever could, the muscle bundled under the plushness of his arms and chest and stomach and his  _ thighs, _ not obvious under clothes neither of them dared to remove but undoubtedly there when Eddie risked tucking himself closer to him while they slept under the sanctuary of darkness. The thick tendon in his neck when he turned his head, the bob of his Adam's apple, the salt that clung to his skin in the New York humidity, the taste of him under Eddie’s tongue when mouth wandered from mouth. 

Eddie was forced to realize over that summer of 2000 that, yes, he’d been attracted to men before— he’d thought certain things about the way certain men looked, admired them from afar, but in a completely different way than to how he acknowledged that women could be beautiful, so yes, he was  _ attracted _ to men— but he was sort of magnetized to Richie. 

And, for the first time, he was allowed to do something about it. Even just kissing him.

Richie was a wonderful kisser. 

Eddie didn’t have much to go off of, but the fact that he was left trembling nearly every time they caved and tangled themselves up with each other on the couch certainly said something. 

At the beginning, it was eager and awkward and fumbling on both ends, but neither could bring themselves to mind. Eddie was uncoordinated, new, but Richie adored every second of it. It meant something to him, the newness, the curiosity with which Eddie touched him. He picked up on the rhythm quickly, hummed against Richie’s mouth in this sweet way that made his head spin, stroked his fingers almost adoringly along his skin and raised goosebumps wherever he touched, and Richie knew he had absolutely no idea he was doing it. He kissed earnestly, openly, like it was all he ever wanted, and Richie, despite all odds, allowed himself to sink into it like a warm bath, letting Eddie overtake him in every way.

It was too easy a surrender, after all that time fighting. 

Incredible, impossible, that here was Eddie Kaspbrak, the first boy Richie had ever even thought to kiss, kissing him freely whenever he so pleased. If twelve year old Richie Tozier could see him now. Maybe that terror he carried with him since that incarnation, since the first time Eddie laughed and snorted and punched Mike’s arm for making fun of him for it and barked back in retaliation with that quick little wit and sharp little mouth and Richie had thought  _ it’d be nice to kiss him if he ever shut the hell up for a second— _ maybe that terror and shame would have been dulled if he could see himself now. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so scared by it, maybe he would have hated himself less if he saw how happy it made him when he finally could. Twenty two, hands cupped reverently around Eddie’s thin face with its beautifully carved dimples and high cheekbones (and no shortage of freckles, that much hadn’t changed), kissing him quiet. Kissing him long and sweet and whenever they got the chance. 

When things grew heated, as they started to with increasing frequency and intensity even within their delicately drawn boundaries, Eddie kept up marvelously in a way Richie had, naively, not expected of him. It made sense that Eddie was as much of a firecracker in such moments as he was in everyday life, but Richie was still shocked the first time Eddie nosed under his jaw and left a trail of searing cigarette burn bites along the column of his neck. 

Eddie burned with pride when he coaxed a sound out of Richie, fueled somehow by the idea that he was doing this well. Exciting to make Richie feel good, to be the one who had his head lolling back with a sigh. Learning little tricks, little things that made him tick: a tug on a lock of his hair, a drag of the nails lightly down his back  _ (over the shirt) _ , a leg slung over his to straddle his broad thighs  _ (ugh), _ body held cautiously up a few inches off his lap  _ (boundaries). _

But there were moments between that made Eddie go cold, shocked and hurt by it. Moments of shame that mixed sourly, water and oil. Something slick and ugly and dirty rising unwanted to the top of his thoughts. He’d find himself seated cautiously in Richie’s lap, warm and riled and happy, when something in the back of his mind would remind him that this was some kind of cruel unnatural. That he was turned on from the mere thought of getting closer, and that he’d never been even warmed up touching kissing pressing Myra into the soft, sweet-smelling floral comforter of her bed. It lead to a number of instances where he’d pull away as if burned, immediately guilty when he noticed the surprise quickly turning to hurt in Richie’s face. 

It wasn’t his fault. Eddie wanted, desperately, to do this right. To do it right for himself, and for Richie. It took some fighting through it, it took some weak moments of tears alone in the shower, it took being conscious when kissing him and saying  _ yes, this is right, this is good, you’re right, he’s good, this is alright— _ but it started to, miraculously, ease. 

It felt nice, for once. Listening to his heart over his brain. Even if it was hard. Even if it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. 

Eddie started school again in 

**AUGUST**

, and their time together became all the more precious. 

As a direct or indirect result, neither of them would ever admit, their meticulous boundaries, silently, mutually, began to blur. 

Richie was a devastating distraction from Eddie’s studies. Eddie carted pounds of textbooks back and forth to California only to have them pushed off his lap and replaced with Richie, quickly pressed back into the couch cushions in the most delightful way. More often than not, he was left to stay up into the wee hours of the morning before his tests upon arriving home, alone, left with the ghost of Richie’s fingerprints on his skin and his hickeys slowly yellowing and healing along his collarbones, tucked away under his the conservative collars of his shirts, a secret.

(Hickeys came from kissing, so it was still, very technically,  _ just kissing _ and nothing more.)

Eddie stood in front of his mirror sometimes, shirtless, toothpaste foam in his mouth, and poked lightly at the marks, reveling in the tenderness beneath them, the dull twinge of it. 

Eddie argued with himself that he was allowed the hickeys because it made things real, it allowed him to wake up alone in his apartment and examine himself in his tiny little mirror, to see the shape of Richie’s mouth and the blooming swells of purple under the pressure of his blunt teeth and say _you’re not crazy, that happened._ _It’s too good to be true, but it happened._ Proof of something, not dating, not really, but oh, oh, something.

Eddie wondered, at the tail end of some of their not-dates, on the walk or ride or drive home, if maybe someday they could. Do more. Go further. If it would feel more allowed if they actually held greasy hands in the movie theater under the cover of darkness, if Richie paid for lunch and Eddie bought him a drink later at the bar, if, when Bev asked once, offhanded and casually after talking about a show she was setting up in St. Louis, if he was seeing anyone, Eddie could say  _ yes, I am, he’s wonderful and he kisses me like he’s crazy and it makes me crazy and yes, I sure as hell am seeing someone and I like him so much,  _ like he wanted to. 

If more would be okay if they’d just admit a certain thing to themselves here and there. 

Eddie liked to think so. 

By 

**SEPTEMBER**

they had a sort of rhythm down with each other, they knew the line, they knew exactly where to stop. And they were getting increasingly close to very intentionally leaping straight over it, restraint dwindling each time they had the chance to kiss and lay hands on each other. The stopping point started to drag out, muttering increasingly meaningless  _ we should slow down _ s or  _ you’re driving me crazy _ s or  _ hey now _ s into each other’s mouths several times before they finally stopped. 

And the leaving got harder. With school and work ramping up and Richie booking more and more gigs with longer commutes, their windows of time were slowly closing. They lingered in each others’ apartments, because they couldn’t at the airport, hugging and swaying on feet, kissing tops of heads and shoulders, numbering the days before the next visit.

Though he thought himself stupid for it, Eddie once made an ass of himself crying on a plane ride home. 

**FALL**

was in full swing New York and the warmth of LA had been so welcome, he reasoned, fat tears slipping over his cheeks and down his neck, snot gobbing up his nose and the back of his throat as he fought to keep quiet so as not to attract attention. Seasonal sadness, missing the warmth, dreading the cold, that was it. Not the frustration of having to wake up alone again, of having to do math every time he wanted to so much as talk to Richie to account for time zones and both of their schedules, for not having the nerve to fess up and call him his and do something stupid and drastic and have him around, tirelessly, all the fucking time.

For a long stretch of his life, Eddie had firmly believed that good things didn’t come without consequences. That for every reward there was a punishment lingering around the corner. And while this whole situation seemed to fall into that logic, Eddie was finding himself questioning it more than ever. 

He was starting to believe that there were some good things you rightfully couldn’t get enough of. 

Richie was turning into one of them. 

The distance was excruciating, but the time they spent together was so good that the time apart felt worth it. Not like retribution, like part of the process. Eddie had a steady job, was doing alright in school, and had Richie waiting for him at the airport whenever they had time. He didn’t just have his cake, he was having his cake with big servings of ice cream doused in hot fudge, eating it too— he just had to finish his damn dinner every night first. 

**WINTER**

was encroaching. One early December afternoon as he walked from work back to his apartment in the weeks between seeing Richie, Eddie recalled the day he’d learned he was moving to LA. The day it felt like things were over, that Richie was finally going where Eddie couldn’t follow and he’d surely be forgotten. With the way things were going back then, that really had almost been it. He smiled to himself thinking about it now, thinking about the way things had gotten worse before they’d gotten better, all the growing pains in between. All the kisses, now in the hundreds, surely. 

From his— best friend. Of course Eddie knew deep down that it was more than that, but he refused to believe there was a word for it. They were just special, was all. And they were just kissing, just visiting each other, just laying awake on each other's chests or pillows and playing with each other's hair and talking about the future, talking about old fears and new anxieties, sharing space like only they could, sharing each other like only they wanted to. 

Great, great friends. Lifelong friends. 

Eddie could be satisfied with that much. Couldn’t dare ask for more. He didn’t care, he’d decided long ago, what he called Richie being in his life, as long as he was there. If pushing things ran the risk of scaring him off, of something not working, of some kind of venomous breakup and collapse, then, shit. He’d be Richie’s Just Friend Who Has The Taste of His Toothpaste And Cigarettes Memorized for the rest of his life. 

Cake, ice cream, hot fudge— chow down. Screw the cavities. 

**3 JANUARY 2001**

was the day the dam, if not broke, began to crack. 

**NEW YORK**

Eddie made the mistake of going home for Christmas.

It was only a little more than a week, and he’d be returning home to the promise of Richie visiting post-New Year’s, so he figured he’d survive. And he did, but not without casualties. 

Cigarette smoke flowed from Richie’s mouth when he spoke. “So the whole Myra wound is still fresh for Mommy Dearest?” 

Eddie nodded the best he could with his chin resting resolutely on his arms, crossed over the freezing rail of his fire escape. Richie took another sizzling drag and Eddie tipped his head to the side to watch him, an exhale warming his nose for only a second. 

His own voice felt froggy in his throat. “First year I didn’t bring her by on Christmas Eve, yeah. She still seems to be taking it kind of hard.” 

It hurt, somehow, more than Eddie cared to admit. It hurt in a very private place, somewhere Eddie couldn’t quite locate physically. Eddie preferred hurts he could put bandaids on, even if it didn’t actually help the pain. The appearance was enough.

There were no bandaids for this one. 

Richie nodded understandingly and shifted his arms in a little tighter to his body. Even under his borrowed parka (wrists left exposed between the bottom of his mittens and the ends of the too-short sleeves), he seemed to be trembling. Eddie just barely resisted standing up to pull him into his arms and rub at his shoulders, warm him up. Barely. 

“She can suck it up,” Richie said resolutely. Like it was easy. “You don’t need that shit.” 

Eddie felt far away, hardly hearing him. “You should really quit.” 

Richie blinked at him owlishly. The lingering Christmas lights on the balconies around them glanced off the lenses of his glasses. Pretty. “What?” 

Eddie idly swatted at a wayward tendril of smoke that drifted his way, noncommittal. “Smoking. The 90’s are over, dude, it’s not cool anymore.” 

“Eddie, baby,” Richie drawled, leaning back against his corner of the railing with a wink. “We all have our vices.” 

It made him smile even if it shouldn’t have. Eddie rolled his eyes to shrug it off as he straightened up, looking at him more properly. 

Richie was propped up in a clean line against the railing, nose red, cheeks pink, a couple curls poking out from underneath his ridiculous little puffball hat. As good as he looked in the California sunshine, Eddie would always have a soft spot for him bundled up in layers and flushed from the cold. It reminded him of home, reminded him that they stemmed from the same place, even if they’d branched out. A thick trunk of history keeping them stitched together. Maine winters, snowball fights, hot cocoa, warming up in snow-damp long johns in the Tozier’s mud room with the rest of their clothes tumbling in the dryer. 

“You shouldn’t even try to sound suave when you’re wearing those stupid little mittens,” Eddie said, inching as close as he dared under the haze of the smoke. Intrigued, Richie lifted the cigarette out of the way, effectively coaxing Eddie a little closer. He planted his hands on the railing on either side of Richie’s waist, shoes between Richie’s ankles. They were eye to eye like this, with Richie slouched slightly. “If you’re not concerned for your own health, would it motivate you any better if I told you you taste like shit after you smoke?” 

“Depends. Are you less likely to kiss me because I taste like shit after I smoke?” 

“Maybe I am.” 

Richie grinned at him, flicking the zipper of Eddie’s coat with his free hand. “Can’t be too reluctant, with the way you’re looking at me right now.” 

Eddie socked him lightly in the chest and stood up straighter, crossing his arms. Richie pouted for only a second before turning his head to take another drag, hiding a smile. 

“You’re getting too sure of yourself.” 

“Well, Kaspbrak, you’re welcome to stop enabling me any time.” 

He was infuriating in an invigorating sort of way. Eddie had spent seemingly the entire past year fretting about what it would mean if they ever crossed the line from friends to friends who, yeah, made out here and there andallthetime. Worried that it might mean they’d lose some of this, the back and forth, the familiarity, the root of it. It felt good knowing that it was still here, that the knife had never dulled, even if Eddie was getting softer and softer on this idiot. Handsome in a dorky sort of way that made Eddie’s heart squeeze into a tight little fist in his chest, not unlike the infuriated hands of a frustrated toddler. 

“You good, dude?” Richie said after a moment, looking mildly uncomfortable. “You’re staring.” 

Eddie dropped his eyes and stepped back slightly, moving closer to Richie’s side, less direct. “Yeah, sorry.” 

Richie was the one who reached out then, rubbing a hand down Eddie’s back a couple times. Maybe to warm him up, maybe not. The shiff of winter fabric on winter fabric was obnoxious in exactly the right way. “What’s bugging you?” 

As welcome a distraction as Richie could be, it sucked knowing he had Eddie’s number. Eddie glanced sideways at him, drawing in a careful frigid breath before tucking his cold hands into the pockets of his coat. “Um.” He closed his eyes and Richie paused at the small of his back for a moment, making his stomach swoop, then continued rubbing the back of his coat. “Part of me thinks she knows.”

“About—”

“Yeah.” Eddie swallowed and it hurt, as if he was getting a cold. He closed his eyes for a moment. 

“How would she—” 

“She’s my  _ mom, _ Rich, she’s— I don’t know.” He rubbed at his arms, Richie inched a hair closer. Eddie was grateful for it. “I think Myra gave her some kind of false hope and that got—” he wheeled his hands around aimlessly, glancing upward at the iron grating of the fire escape above them, huffing. 

“Shit on?” 

Eddie sighed. “Shit on, sure.”

Richie looped his arm around Eddie’s waist. Eddie shivered, nothing to do with the cold. He felt pleasantly warm if a little sweaty under his layers, secure on the rickety fire escape in the bitter New York winter air. 

He thought sometimes if he closed his eyes and held his breath, he could memorize the way it felt when Richie touched him. Maybe if he shut down his other senses then he could commit the exact weight of his arm around him, the exact pressure of his hands, the way their sides fit together, to memory, that he could access it and feel it in the dark nights in between the visits, sleep easier. Have it forever. Just in case.

He opened his eyes after a stretch. 

“Rich?” he asked, voice a little quieter than intended. Reserved.

“Yeah?”

“Do your parents know?” 

Richie didn’t answer immediately. Eddie gave him a moment before looking back at him, finding him glancing out off the fire escape. His mouth was pressed into a tight line, but he shook his head almost good-naturedly. A thin line of gold light outlined his profile, city-that-never-sleeps sketching. 

“No, there’s really never been a reason to tell them. I dated girls throughout high school and they knew about Sandy, but beyond that—” he drifted off. Shrugged. “Not really— yeah, no reason to break that news.” 

Eddie may have imagined it, but he thought he felt Richie squeeze his waist. 

Yet. 

His heart fluttered. “Right.”

“You know you don’t have to talk to your mom about it if you don’t want to, right? Like— ever. There’s no reason she has to know.” 

Eddie finally let his head plunk heavily onto Richie’s shoulder. The hurt throbbed in its nowhere place. He felt the distinct urge to whine like a little kid, exhausted by the mental gymnastics of it all. 

He had, to say the least, complicated feelings about it. “Can we talk about something else?” He picked at the hem of Richie’s coat. “Please.” 

Richie’s lips popped when he plucked the cigarette from his mouth. “Oh— yeah, fuck.” He bumped Eddie’s hip lightly with his own, but Eddie didn’t open his eyes until he spoke next. “I have news.” 

Eddie picked his head up to stare at him, pulse kicking. “News?” 

Richie rolled his bottom lip under his teeth and nodded, eyebrows lifting. “Kind of exciting news, if I do say so myself.” 

Eddie could have throttled him. Leave it to him to drag out  _ news. _ “Okay? Spit it out, dude, what news?” 

“Impatient.” 

Eddie jabbed him in the ribs and Richie swore. There was no way it could have hurt, given the padding in the coat, the huge baby. It was all theater. 

“Fuck, okay.” He paused as long as he could without Eddie outright attacking him, murder in his glance. “Steve’s trying to get me an audition.” 

So that told him nothing. “For what, like a movie?” 

_ “God _ no.” Richie bounced his eyebrows. “Ever heard of a little program called Saturday Night Live?” 

Eddie’s eyes went wide. The motion of the night stopped dead for a moment— taxis ceased honking, alley cats quieted, happy drunks grew silent on their walks home. “Sat— that’s filmed here.” The gears in his head wheeled, squeaky and unoiled. “30 Rock isn’t that far from here, do y—” his breath caught in his throat as hope bloomed over a callous of patience at the back of Eddie’s mind. 

Richie nodded enigmatically. “Yeah, I know, we’ve passed it a couple times walking around.” This time when he hugged Eddie to his side there was nothing questionable about it. It was a little hold, a tug, a security thing, and Eddie felt every inch of it. “Think you’d get tired of me if I could visit you on your lunch breaks?” 

Eddie jabbed him again in the side, a nervous budding energy clouding his thoughts. Excitement and then some, several wires crossing. “Why the fuck didn’t you lead with this, Richie? You’ve been here like— two hours and you’re just telling me  _ now _ you might be—” 

He felt a little cold suddenly.

Eddie held up a finger. “Wait a minute.” 

“What?” 

“Y— _ Richie.”  _

Richie scowled, picking up on the chiding in Eddie’s tone. “What? Are y— you’re not excited?” 

“No! No, I mean I am, just—” Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose, flapping his other hand out. “Fuck, Rich, is that what you really wanna do? SNL?” 

“I mean it feels like a natural next step—” 

“But isn’t—” Eddie couldn’t put his finger on it. He spoke before thinking, words rushing out. “But aren’t those guys kind of— losers?” 

_ “What?” _

“The SNL guys! They’re just— I mean they’re kind of—”

“Kind of  _ what, _ Eddie?” 

This wasn’t coming out how he meant it to. His stomach twisted, hoping he hadn’t insulted him. “I just— you’re funnier than that.” 

Richie looked him over carefully. “You haven’t even seen any of my sets, Eds.” 

“Yeah, because you’re not writing them and you didn’t want me to come last time, I— I mean  _ you, _ Richie. You don’t need that kind of shit. That’s like— I mean they’re just a bunch of coked-out wannabe frat boys, right?”

Richie looked a little hurt by that, making Eddie instantly regret spitting it out. Maybe not the part about the SNL guys, who he truly didn’t find that funny, never had, but the last thing he wanted to do was step on Richie’s aspirations. 

Wounded, Richie’s voice dropped a couple notes. His arm felt a little looser around Eddie’s waist. “Do y— Eddie, if you don’t want me to move up here—” 

He could have screamed. Mostly at himself. _ “No, _ fuck, Richie, that’s not it—” 

It  _ wasn’t. _ The idea of Richie being within subway distance, driving distance, fuck, maybe even  _ walking  _ distance stirred up a whole swarm in Eddie’s gut, a  _ good _ swarm, but— “I— listen, Rich, you’ve gotta make your career moves for yourself, right? And I just— don’t let me sway you too much either way, okay, if you really wanna do this, but I—” he shook his head, not sure where he was going. Somewhere, surely, somewhere out of genuine concern for Richie and his well being, but a little ambling. 

“A lot of comedians have gotten their start on SNL, Eddie. I mean Steve’s a little skeptical about it too but I think— I don’t know. I— it could be a good connection. A great one, honestly.” 

Eddie drew in a breath, careful not to sound patronizing. “Richie, I— you’re making headway in LA, don’t uproot yourself unless you’re sure of it. If you’re just doing this to be in New York, then—” 

It started to strike him then. He was trying desperately not to be selfish. He breathed again, collecting himself, changing tracks. 

“Richie, you say it all the time, you fucking hate New York. You love LA.” 

“I—” it seemed to fall apart a little for Richie then too, losing steam quickly. “I don’t hate New York.” 

Eddie gave him a withering look. “Literally the last time you were here you almost got bowled over by a taxi and went face first into a snowbank, and yelled, and I quote, ‘I fucking hate New York.’” 

Richie flushed red, caught. He scrubbed at the back of his neck. “Yeah, but— the point would be using it as like a springboard kind of thing, it wouldn’t be forever. Just getting my name out there, you know, I wouldn’t have to put down roots in New York if I didn’t want to, I could move back out to LA once I get picked up on something, no harm done.” 

Eddie’s pulse was hammering so hard, eyes locked on Richie’s face to detect anything underneath his tone. Any sign that there was something else going on here, that there was another reason he wanted to try this. 

He must have stared too hard for too long, because Richie started to squirm under his gaze, mouth opening and closing several times before blurting, “You know I don’t do coke anymore, right?”

Eddie blinked, mouth going dry for a moment. “That’s not—” okay, that was almost a lie, he would be concerned about that, considering the reputation, but— “I’m saying you’ve got good things ahead of you. You love LA, you’re doing well there, Steve’s— Steve, but he’s made some good moves for you already. Don’t lose your traction for—”

“For you?” Richie asked, challenging. 

Eddie pursed his lips, holding his gaze. He puffed out a rough sigh. “That’s not what I was gonna say, but—” he raised his arms and dropped them, exasperated. “Honestly, yeah.” 

“Eds,” Richie said, in a way that simultaneously softened and infuriated Eddie, “I’m not being naive about this. It’s a happy coincidence that SNL is usually pretty good for comedians and happens to be filmed in the same town as you. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a pretty big factor for me—” 

“Don’t,” Eddie said. He hadn’t meant to cut him off, but he didn’t think his heart could take him going on. “Richie, seriously. I don’t think you’re being naive, okay, I just— you’re doing pretty fucking well right now, don’t stop now. I really really think you’re going somewhere, I know you’re a little bored with the scene there right now but you’re—” 

Richie’s eyes were big, trained on him in that way that always sucked the air out of Eddie’s lungs. He wet his lips, hooking a finger in the pocket of Richie’s parka and holding his gaze. “You’ve got something. You don’t need to start fresh. I’ve got a good feeling.” 

A few heartbeats passed and neither of them said anything. Just long enough for Eddie to feel like he might go ballistic if the still air didn’t stir, if one of them didn’t make some kind of move. 

“I’ll talk to Steve. He’s— annoying as he is, he knows what he’s doing. I’ll see what he says.” 

“Okay.” 

“Please don’t go off the rails. You’ve worked really hard to get where you are, okay, I believe in you.” 

Richie, for all his attention-seeking, had a hard time taking anything remotely resembling a compliment. More often better fueled by what Steve called constructive criticism but which Eddie felt fell more under the category of bullying. 

“Yeah,” Richie sighed, attempting to shrug it off. “I— thanks. I’ll figure it out, okay?” 

It took everything in Eddie not to give him a little peck. Maybe it still felt too familiar, like he was pushing something onto him. They could make out for hours on end, but not kiss and tell. “I know you will. You’re smart, Richie. You’re— you set your mind to something and you find a way to do it, you know?” Eddie swallowed and Richie didn’t say anything to that. He gently gripped the sleeve of Richie’s coat, standing subconsciously on his toes to look him in the eyes and get the sincerity across. “You drive me up a fucking wall most of the time, but I really admire that about you.” 

It then took everything in Eddie not to throw a casual  _ dude _ in there to keep from feeling too exposed. He apparently wasn’t alone, with the way Richie damn near squirmed under the praise. 

“Well you don’t have to say all  _ that _ to get in my pants, I thought you knew I was easy.” 

Another withering look. He seemed to thrive off those, too, by the way he perked up when Eddie rolled his eyes. Masochist. “Don’t start.”

Richie clicked his tongue and pointed a finger gun when he winked at him, and Eddie, humiliatingly, wanted to eat him whole. “I’m about done out here with this cancer stick, you wanna take me to bed anyway, darling?”

Oh, how Eddie wished he had the strength to say no. 

Sometimes Eddie believed that breathing truly wasn’t all it was cracked up to be if he wasn’t sucking down air between bouts of kissing Richie. The process of clambering inside, stripping off layers, and warming up was just frantic enough to set the pace when they settled in together on the couch, the television on for nothing more than background noise. 

Blood sang hot under Eddie’s skin, goosebumps rising and falling up and down his arms as Richie’s chilly fingers skated over his skin. It still felt like his brain was wired up to jumper cables with all the unresolved trains of thought skirting around in his skull, but Richie had introduced to him such a delightful way to get his loudest thoughts to shut up. 

Things went pleasantly static when Richie sucked on his tongue and slid his palms up Eddie’s back under his thermal. A moan fell out of his mouth and into Richie’s and he took it like a reward, only encouraging him to pull Eddie closer into his chest. 

Sometimes Eddie waxed sappy about how familiar this had become. About how easy it was to sink fully into Richie, about how comforting it was to kiss him dizzy; collapsing into bed and sleeping like a dog after a long exciting day at the lake. It was equally terrifying, understanding the pull and power Richie had on him. The fact that he felt like he needed him, more than just needed to see him, talk to him, needed him to run his hands through his hair and sigh against his mouth and sink heated little bites into his skin. Nothing else shut the world out like this, nothing else captured all of Eddie’s focus and energy and gave him something to do with all that pent up frustration and worry, and no one worked it out of him better than Richie could. He could wax sappy about that too— about how this was almost a way of being taken care of. Of Richie knowing him so well, knowing what he needed, knowing how to click up the temperature and burn off Eddie’s excess so he could collapse onto the couch next to him at the end of it and feel each of his vertebrae finally release and relax.

He’d missed Richie desperately over the past month, over the dirge of Christmas and New Year’s at home. Far beyond physically: bone deep and brain deep and, yeah, sappy sappy sappy, heart deep. Eddie was still not a huge fan of texting, preferred Richie’s snide little voice on the other line, but it had been nice to sneak a message to him under the table at dinner when things got overwhelming with his mother. It only made the longing worse, though, knowing he could brush the surface of contact without having a hand to hold or arm to pull around him. 

He didn’t realize how fired up he’d grown until Richie nipped his bottom lip and Eddie’s hips rocked forward against the knee Richie had slung between his, a moan dropping carelessly from his mouth. Hadn’t even realized their legs had already gotten tangled, so accustomed to their bodies pressing close. 

_ Habit comma bad question mark,  _ Eddie thought uselessly.  _ Feels good though colon maybe not so bad  _

“Sorry,” Eddie hissed, inching his hips back slightly. It crept up on him sometimes, the heat under his skin and the pooling warmth in his groin, not meaning to seem overeager or insistent. 

Richie hummed almost smugly and pressed a few kinder little kisses to Eddie’s mouth, migrating down to his jaw and neck. “Don’t be,” he said, voice light. Happy, self satisfied. He made no move to shift his leg back, apparently not minding Eddie’s little transgression. 

Eddie devoted a lot of time and brain power to keeping his arousal to himself. Not that Richie ever seemed to mind— more often than not, it was a good chain reaction, both of them keying each other up in a way that felt, at its base, stupid good. It took a certain stretch of time to get over the awkwardness of shifting too close and coming face to face (or, more crudely and literally, boner to boner) with the fact that they turned each other on, but they were getting over that hump. And getting over the— well. Not quite humping. 

They had wordlessly shifted into the world of maybe— what, grinding? Eddie cringed searching for terminology, but, sure. Maybe that was what to call it. Every once in a while when guards were down and heart rates were up, Eddie would find himself near delirious with Richie pressed up hard and hot against his hip, trying uselessly to blame the friction heating up between them on the natural motion of making out. It felt too good to stop, and neither of them seemed to really mind, so why did they have to?

Richie dragged his nails lightly down Eddie’s back and Eddie instinctively pressed forward, grinding up hard against the padded muscle of his quad and feeling Richie’s dick press stiffly against his hip. He groaned low in his chest and clutched the back of Richie’s shirt, maintaining pressure for only a second longer until he felt himself throb from want.

Based on the sharp little intake of breath, he was sure Richie noticed.

“Fuck, sorry.” Sometimes Eddie thought he needed to learn to stop apologizing about it. “Christmas was just stressful, I think I’m just— wound up.” He felt bad about it, not wanting to take it out on Richie. He didn’t want him to think that’s what this was all about. Even if he managed to take Eddie down several notches, he wasn’t just stress release. 

Sensing Eddie needing a breath, Richie pulled back slightly and settled a hand on Eddie’s hip, his thumb massaging dizzying circles into the jut of bone. Eddie let his eyes flutter shut, intoxicated, coming down slightly. Fuzzy. Good. Okay. 

“No need to feel sorry about it,” he said. He kissed lightly at Eddie’s cheek. “You are uh— you are very wound up.” He sounded a little breathless in that way that made Eddie’s brain fizzle. The airiness in his voice, the gruffness at the end of his sentences. Something about Richie voice then, about hearing the arousal when he spoke made Eddie feel frantic and hot all over. “I can see that,” Richie teased, only making it worse. 

Eddie dared pop an eye open to glance down, groaning at himself when he did. “Fuck,” he muttered, the tent in his corduroys all the more obvious with Richie’s hand compressing the fabric at his hip. And that was a sight in and of itself; Richie’s long fingers and broad palm holding him in place there, thumb dangerously close to Eddie’s erection. Eddie groaned and dropped his forehead onto Richie’s shoulder, bracing himself for the comedown. That line they hadn’t crossed, instead getting right up to it and backing off, afraid, seemingly, of god knows what. “Sorr—mm.” 

“Don’t say sorry.” 

“Right.” Eddie breathed out slowly. Richie continued rubbing idly at his hip, petting. Eddie shifted his knee slightly, feeling Richie tense then melt when he nudged against the hard line of him in his jeans. He made a soft sound low in his chest and Eddie savored it, humming against the crook of his shoulder. Eddie couldn’t relax, try as he might, squirming the next time Richie’s thumb swept too close to him. 

It wasn’t always a straight path back down when they tried to back off. Usually took several attempts. 

“Hey,” Richie said, keeping his voice quiet. Soft. No pressure there. He cupped the jut of Eddie’s hip bone, thumb tugging on the fabric of his cords just enough that he could feel it shift against him. Eddie bit his lip hard to keep from moaning again, head stuffed with cotton.

Richie drew a shaky breath and Eddie could tell he was about to offer something dangerous. 

“We can do something about this, if you want.” 

He sounded nervous, not about the act itself, more about Eddie’s reaction. Hanging on his response. They’d come close several times. Maybe afraid of a point of no return, of the vulnerability, of the undeniability that was actually getting dicks involved. But Eddie’s retraint had, as of late, been wearing thinner and thinner, and the heat of the kiss and the pent up frustration from the past week and everything being up in the air and Richie fucking considering packing up and moving to New York and the fact that that was never going to happen and he missed him and he liked him and he just needed to be grounded and maybe, maybe this time wouldn’t be so bad and fuck fuck fuck he kept circling his thumb around his hip and he was inches from him and god he was so hard he was practically twitching under the tight fly of his pants— 

_ “Yes,  _ yeah, please— yeah,” Eddie panted, suddenly out of breath. 

Oh, god, it was already humiliating. Why did he say please? Fuck. Why did he say yes at all? He wanted to, yes, of course he did, of course he’d been thinking about it for maybe months now, but now that it was here— it felt heavy. It felt huge. 

He tried to wet his dry lips as he glanced down Richie’s body, safe from his gaze. Kinda looked heavy and— buh. 

Richie made a short little noise and Eddie pressed his face harder into his shoulder, looking away, skin buzzing all over. “You sure?” 

Eddie took a second to make sure he was. Considered the feeling of Richie sliding his palm an inch to the right, that big palm covering him, the drag and the pressure and pressing squeezing anything— heat dripped down his spine like molasses, making him shiver. He swallowed thickly, hips pressing upward slightly into Richie’s hand. Richie kindly didn’t move.

Eddie was trying to get used to this. Being allowed to want. Being allowed to act on wants. And, truly, there was no one else he trusted with this more than Richie, no one else he’d rather try this with— 

Eddie swallowed. “Yes, just— um. Just outside the pants, for now.” 

As if some ground rules could help him. 

Eddie had had to work out some of his qualms against fantasizing sometime back. Namely over the summer of 97, where it had become a skill that, if he hadn’t figured it out after the constant pressing heat of working in that garage, might have been the last string of sanity preventing him from becoming actively homicidal. Fantasizing about Richie still felt feeble and terrifying, but alone on his back in the dark with a pillow stuffed into one of Richie’s shirts so he could press his face into it and breathe in the lingering scent of him, it came a little easier. He’d been unable to keep from fussing over his hands once they were readily available to him— his big square palms, the veins looping over the bones and tendons at the back, his long sturdy fingers, square fingernails, blocky wrists, solid forearms. His mouth, both the quick wit of it and the heat of it against Eddie’s skin. His teeth were always so pretty and straight, canines a little sharp, that little bite of them when he teased against the joint of his neck something that Eddie always felt for weeks after. The dart of his tongue, the softness of his lips, the scrabble of his stubble against Eddie’s cheeks and lips and the tender skin of his neck. He thought about that sensation often, thought about it in other places, maybe the hot press of his mouth, too, the muscle of his tongue the way he sucked and nibbled on Eddie’s bottom lip and what else he could suck on—

“Woah—“

The gentle heat of his palm was encompassing, the pressure immediate. Eddie squirmed without meaning to, pressing forward into his hand. Richie squeezed and Eddie felt brainless, thighs inching further apart. His spine was still tense; he made a conscious effort to relax it, to focus on feeling good, not on any number of his other hangups. He’d definitely thought about this before, even if slightly subconsciously. He sighed, and Richie hummed and kissed at his neck in response. Richie worked his mouth there until Eddie hummed and let his head fall back, relaxing inch by inch, palming over him easy and slow. His hips twitched and Eddie winced, feeling a little pulse of wet heat slip from the head of his dick. Richie pressed his thumb up under the head of his cock and it happened again, making Eddie gasp. “Hey—” 

“Too much?” 

Eddie shook his head, but Richie stilled until he spoke. “No, pl— good.” 

Christ, he didn’t want to sound like a virgin. While it was true that he was a virgin, yes, he didn’t want it to be a Thing. He didn’t want Richie to feel obligated to handle him gently because of inexperience, he didn’t want the pressure of it going perfectly. He wanted to stop overthinking, so he shifted a little to get more comfortable and eased himself up into the pressure of Richie’s hand again, boneless in an instant as he dragged his thumb up along the length of him. 

“Oh,” he sighed, nerves shaking it slightly. Richie hummed again, which was strangely comforting, his breath heady just under Eddie’s ear. His racing thoughts started to slow, melding into something more aligned with the feeling of it. 

_ He’s touching me, _ he observed, as if that wasn’t obvious. And fuck, fuck, did it feel good. Even dulled by the layers of clothes separating him, Richie was grinding hot, even strokes along the length of him, coaxing him to rock his hips up against him in time. It was different, obviously, from touching himself, from rocking up against Richie’s body when they kissed, but definitely not unpleasant. Pleasure had always been such a private thing for Eddie, even a little shameful, that a minute or two into it, the shock started to hit him. Richie changed the angle and cupped him more fully, fingers scooping under his package and down between his legs. Blood started roaring in his ears. He could feel his pulse on the inside of his elbows, suddenly hyper aware of the fact that he was compulsively smoothing his hands up and down Richie’s back, almost comforting himself with the motion. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on feeling good, on the fact that he had wanted this and apparently so had Richie, Richie had a hand on him and was panting slightly like this was doing something for him too—

Eddie groaned without meaning to and Richie gave him a little squeeze, starting to rub him down in earnest. 

“There you go,” he muttered, and it wasn’t coddling or patronizing, it was deep and hot and comforting in a way, and while Eddie hated that he needed to be comforted, his racing pulse wasn’t all pleasure. Then Richie muttered his name and Eddie  _ ached. _

He wanted to let Richie touch him, really touch him, skin on skin, closing his eyes and picturing him slipping his hand into his pants, his boxers, taking him into his broad hand and pumping him in earnest, and fuck, fuck he wanted to do the same to him, he wanted to feel the heat and weight of him in his hand, thumb over the slit of his cock and see if he liked it as much as Eddie did when he did it to himself, squeeze him as he stroked up and hear him moan, hear him say his name like that again, breathless and weighty with desire and the pressure deep in his groin started to build, knots of tension coiling tightly and tugging throbbing he was getting off on Richie touching him, getting off on the fact that his hands were big and thick and his voice was low and his face was scratchy and he could really never tell his mother, never, because she’d know, she’d know her son was getting manhandled on the couch by that troublemaker boy from the other side of town, he’d tell her he’s in love with this boy and all she’d see was filthy, dirty, disease and depravity she couldn’t know even if he wanted to shout it from the rooftops that even if Richie wasn’t his he wanted so so badly to say he was  _ his _ but he couldn’t, he wouldn’t be enough, he’d be worse than not enough he’d be sick wrong all those things his mother had taught him about those other men he’d be all those dirty words he heard in high school and all the sob stories and secrets he heard in college and god forbid Sonia ever find out her sweet untainted little boy was getting felt up by Richie Tozier— 

Eddie’s blood turned to ice, head getting ahead of himself as all the warmth seemed to evaporate from his skin.

“Okay  _ stop—  _ stop wait—”

Richie yanked his hand back as if burned, immediately placing the other on Eddie’s shoulder to steady him. “You okay?” 

“No,” Eddie said automatically, sweat chilling him on the back of his neck. He had to fight to keep still, had to fight to keep still and not shove Richie off or bolt to the bathroom, eyes squeezing shut and fingers going tight in the front of Richie’s shirt as he shook his head frantically. “No, fuck, I can’t I’m sorry—” 

“Eddie, it’s okay—” 

He burned again suddenly, all shame, and drew in a shaky gasp for air before slumping back against the arm of the couch, drawing his knees up. He could feel Richie nearby, fretting quietly. “Rich, it’s not you, you didn’t do anything wrong—” 

Not unlike a worried golden retriever, Richie nosed up under Eddie’s arm and sandwiched himself by his side, muscling his way next to him. “Okay, I just— I’m sorry if that was too much too fast, we can stop. I don’t—”

“It’s okay,” Eddie breathed. Really breathed. He was trembling, which was humiliating, but he squeezed Richie to his side and just breathed. “I’m okay, I just— I got ahead of myself, I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t apologize,” Richie said. And then, in that miraculous way he had, those rare instances where Richie knew exactly what the fuck to say, he sat up slightly, looked down at Eddie as if everything were completely normal and none of that had happened, and said “I think there’s reruns of Unsolved Mysteries on right now.” 

Any other time, Eddie might have broken down into tears. Maybe he was just overwhelmed, maybe he just loved Richie, maybe it was because Richie couldn’t have said anything more Richie in the moment, but Eddie laughed. That seemed to alleviate some of Richie’s worry, too, because he started to grin again, if managing to look a little baffled. 

“What now?” 

“Yes, just— yeah, sure. Get the fuck off me,” Eddie said, pushing at him lightly, trying to shake off the nervous giggles. “Unsolved fucking Mysteries.” 

“You like that show!” 

Eddie whacked him with a pillow as he stood up off the couch to grab the remote. Richie squawked at him. Things felt, impossibly, somehow, despite all that, fine.

He was falling for him. Eddie was actively falling for him, doing something as simple as sitting around watching Unsolved Mysteries under the comforting weight of his arm around his shoulders. 

It still felt massive, all of this. There was a lot to conquer. There was a lot to talk about. They were balancing increasingly precariously on the verge of something bigger than both of them, sometimes, but as simple as this. Eddie could make himself sick thinking about all of it, all of the everything they still had left to work on and figure out and  _ (god, fuck, please no) talk _ about. Or he could sit on his ass on the couch and enjoy himself, enjoy Richie talking over reruns and giving him no chance to pay attention to the storyline. 

**6 JANUARY 2001**

**LOS ANGELES - NEW YORK**

**6:09PM - 9:09PM**

Apparently, Eddie couldn’t get away without talking about it eventually. Richie called in the usual fashion a day after he returned home. Eddie had secretly hoped they could mutually ignore the near fiasco on the couch, which he had a feeling he was going to be embarrassed about for the rest of his life, but Richie, of course, had to ask if he was really okay. To which Eddie responded that he was, he’d just gotten ahead of himself, he was new to all of this. 

And Richie just had to ask him to define ‘new.’

Eddie should have figured it would come up eventually. 

“I mean, not that I’m asking you to disclose your whole history,” Richie tried, voice pitched up slightly. “That’s totally not necessary, I guess I’m just asking— new with guys? New with— just— in general? Did you and your girlfriend? Ever?”

“Did Myra and I ever…?”

“Yeah, I mean I— not to say I  _ assumed, _ but you— you never mentioned—”

“You assumed we never had sex.” 

“I—” 

“I mean that’s fine, we didn’t. I don’t care.” 

“Okay, so you’ve never had sex?”

“—no.”

“I mean that’s fine—” 

“I know it’s fine. Richie, that’s— it’s whatever, it’s maybe a little embarrassing considering I’m in fucking master’s school and I’ve never been laid, but it’s been like— nothing ever. Is my point.” 

“I mean— okay, when you say nothing ever, have— do you like— do you masturbate?”

“Christ— yes! Richie! Everyone fucking masturbates, why would you even—” 

“Hey some people don’t! Probably. I was just— okay, nevermind. Point is, no one’s ever gotten you off? Besides you.” 

“Right, yeah.” 

“Has anyone ever tried?” 

“Richie,” Eddie sighed. “No one has so much as  _ looked _ at my dick but me. And— well, I guess you’ve now um. Kind of. Groped it.” 

“So sexy of you to say it like that.” 

“I don’t do sexy, that’s what I’m saying here.” 

“Oh you do sexy, you just haven’t done sex.” 

“Sure. Right. Whatever. But no, no— touching or otherwise or anything. I’ve really only had one girlfriend and I’m gay, for fucks sake. It’s not that hard to believe.”

“Okay, well. I know this is— kind of the first time we’re talking about this, but— I would be both comfortable and honored to uh. Embark, on that, with you.”

“Please, Richie, for the sake of both of our prides just— talk normally.” 

“I’d love to get off with you. Get off you. Get you— fuck. Second base. Or maybe that’s third, actually I’d be super down for third, it’s just been a while since I—” 

“Okay okay okay I— message received, Richie. Um— can I get back to you on it?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m not ready to launch into phone sex right now, take all the time you need.” 

“Phone s— I feel like I’ve already taken too much time.” 

“Dude, you have hangups. So what. I still have hangups. The first time Sandy and I had sex I cried like a baby, that’s just life.” 

“Really?” 

“I— probably shouldn’t have told you that.”

“No, no, I’m glad you did. Both because it makes me feel better about this whole thing and because I can make fun of you for it.”

“Exactly why I shouldn’t have said anything. Right. Anyway— if you wanna start, just give me the word. I’m not gonna push anything, don’t be worried about it.” 

“You’re sure?” 

“Eddie, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you get me— I’m— Christ. There’s no graceful way to put it. I’m— super into you, dude, making out with you drives me fucking crazy. I’d be so lucky to round the bases with you. Man.” 

“Man?” 

“Yeah. Take it or leave it, Eds, spare me some pride. I’m not exactly well versed in communication about this shit, it usually just happens.” 

“Maybe it still will? Just happen?”

“If that’s— okay. With you.” 

“I— I think maybe we’ll know?” 

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” 

“I mean we’ll— in the moment. But we’ll— we can— yeah.”

“Yeah.” 

“Right.”

“Okay. Cool. I’d— yeah. No worries, dude.”

“As much as I’d love to not plan anything with this and just revel in the spontaneity of the moment—”

“Oh, you’re definitely gonna scheme about it on your own time, I was pretty sure of that.”

“I— yeah. Probably.” 

“But hey, we can play it off like it’s spontaneous. In the moment. It’ll— be fine. Whenever that is.”

“Yeah. It’ll be fine.”

“Great, even.” 

“Yeah, Rich. I appreciate the note of confidence.” 

It was then that Eddie noticed that it had begun to snow again, and smoothly transitioned their conversation to the weather, his stomach still tied in nervousexcited knots.

Somewhere in the pit of his stomach, cheesy as it sounded, it felt like he was getting braver. 

**5 MARCH 2001**

**LOS ANGELES**

**5:32PM**

“Can I go down on you?”

Sometimes, Eddie opened his mouth and Richie felt like his brain simply popped out of existence in a little puff of smoke. 

There had been no further discussion of Things over the last two visits. Eddie had flown to California, he and Richie mostly watched television and went to bars and had a generally good time. They snuggled in bed, which was what counted, what Richie had really been craving since his last visit. Richie had flown to New York and they went out to the movies and got Indian from Eddie’s new favorite place down the street, and spent the second night not paying any attention to the television between bouts of making out, keeping things cautiously above the belt.

Then Eddie was back in Los Angeles, once more, for Richie’s birthday.

Richie had been fed a lot of bullshit by a lot of dickish guys in his hayday, and he figured he’d gotten pretty good at sniffing it out, but saying with a smile to himself in the mirror “We’re just good friends” before going to pick Eddie up at LAX once again was starting to reek.

Of course Richie was in love with him. Naturally. That had been a near constant for most of his life now, but there had been times he’d been able to shift it to a back burner, not think about it so much. 

Not so much since that day last March. Anniversaries, how ‘bout that? 

Sincerely, sometimes Eddie opened his mouth and went and said something like  _ that, _ and Richie forgot seemingly the entire English language. He made some strangled sort of sound and sat back on his heels, holding Eddie at an arm’s length. They’d been seconds from falling into bed for what Richie had figured was going to be a fairly routine we’re-just-friends-but-yes-I’m-in-love-with-him-and-we-make-out make out session when Eddie had dropped that, and Richie very quickly had to recover his balance and figure out if he’d heard correctly. 

“Say again?” 

There was something determined in Eddie’s eyes, something that kindled a fire in the pit of Richie’s stomach. “I’ve just— been thinking.”

God, Richie fucking loved it when he did that. 

“I know we talked about it, a little,” Eddie ventured. Richie gently inched himself back until he was sitting back on his heels, Eddie’s legs stretched out on the mattress beneath him. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“Like what?” Richie asked, genuinely trying to stop looking at him like that. “Sorry.” 

“I’ve been thinking and I took some time to figure some shit out on my own lately and I—” Eddie took a quick little breath, resignation allowing his shoulders to finally sink. “I dunno, I just want you, dude.” 

Richie’s ears whistled like a bomb had just dropped. He stared at Eddie and Eddie stared back, pink cheeked. Dumfounded, heat dripping down his spine like molasses, Richie blinked at him rapidly, words spilling out of him before he could stop them. 

“You cannot throw a _‘dude’_ in there if you’re gonna say shit like that!” 

Eddie looked at him like he was insulted, trying to play it off in that spiky little way of his. “Shit like what, I want you?” 

“Yes! Fuck.” He scrubbed his hand down the side of his face, nerves suddenly pinging under his skin.  _ I want you. _ “Jesus _ Christ, _ warn a guy.” 

Eddie then found it within himself to be embarrassed. He pressed a hand to his forehead, closing his eyes. “Fuck, sorry—” 

“Don’t be sorry, just—” Richie reached up to gently take his wrist and remove his hand from his face.

Eddie looked at him then, all big brown eyes and heart wrenching sincerity. “I just want you,” he repeated. 

He said it so plainly then, so earnestly that Richie felt like he was getting picked apart thread by thread. His arms were quaking where he held himself up. “Um, okay, maybe– wow. Maybe the dude is okay it uh. It softens the blow. A little.”

They stared at each other for a moment, dumbfounded, disbelieving, before Eddie cleared his throat and Richie adjusted how he sat, antsy.

“I— figured we could try again.” 

“Try again,” Richie breathed. He looked up to the ceiling as if there was a god he could thank. “Fuck, happy birthday to me.”

Eddie looked at him imploringly, raising his eyebrows. There was that challenging little look again, and Richie recovered some of his nerves, realizing that this might actually be happening.

“Oh, fuck— right now?” 

“If you w—” 

Richie surged back up to kiss him, cupping a hand at the back of his neck and drinking him in. For all the talking they did in the days between, sometimes it felt like they got most of their ground going when they kissed. Some things words just couldn’t convey. There was a certain amount of trust in that kiss, as Eddie wound his fingers in the threadbare fabric to hold him a little closer, a silent acknowledgement. Richie could feel the difference as Eddie pressed his teeth lightly into his bottom lip, could feel the tension seeping out of him slowly. Richie pecked his mouth a few times before they got too into it to quit, smoothing Eddie’s hair back away from his brow.

“I— okay.” 

Eddie blinked. 

Richie swallowed. “Hear me out.” He took a careful breath, looking very seriously at Eddie. “Can I go down on  _ you?” _ Richie asked. Eddie opened his mouth and Richie held up a hand, trying to explain. “I— not that I don’t  _ want _ you to, I just— it doesn’t seem fair for you to be on the giving end of a blowjob when you’ve never— been on the receiving end.”

Eddie gave him a withering look, not convinced in the least. “You’re afraid I’m gonna fuck up and bite you, arent you?” 

“ _ What? _ No. Are you afraid of that?” 

“I’m not gonna forget it’s a dick and chomp down thinking its a fucking corn dog, Richie, I’m not an idiot.” 

“I dunno, Eds, speaking as someone who's had both in his mouth at some time or another, they’re not that dissimilar in feel.” 

“You don’t stick a corn dog in your mouth like a— that’s— stupid that’s not the fucking point.” He flapped a hand, taking himself down a notch, breathing. Then Eddie looked at him with that genuineness that went straight through him every time. “I— Rich, it’s your birthday,” he said, a little feebly, like that explained everything. “Almost. I mean I’m here for your birthday, I want—”

Richie cupped his cheek with one hand, trying to offer him the same sincerity. Something in him wanted this so bad suddenly, wanted to make this good for him. “No, seriously, the chance to get you off is a gift for me, trust me.” 

Richie wished there was a way to memorize the way Eddie looked at him. He wasn’t sure what to call it. It wasn’t completely new, but wasn’t entirely familiar. It was a look that had been evolving for years now, something like vulnerable endearment, something still growing. He just held his gaze for a moment, lips parted, “Wait—” Eddie huffed, sitting up properly, Richie still seated on his thighs. “Your birthday’s not for two more days,” he pointed out stubbornly.

“Oh, baby, I cannot wait two more days for this.” Richie rubbed his hands together. “I’m opening this one early.”

Something eased in Eddie’s expression, opening up like a flower until he was laughing. The cute little wrinkle of worry between his brows faded slightly, his knees shifting. Richie’s enthusiasm seemed to be helping, which was great. It wasn’t like he had to exaggerate. His blood was singing in his veins, excitement budding in his chest. He wet his lips, sitting back slightly so as not to crowd him. “If you’ll let me. You’re totally welcome to try too, I just— I wanna— I wanna.” 

Eddie chewed on the inside of his cheek, searching Richie over for any signs of insincerity and finding none. Then turning to teasing, his grin turning sly. “Eager, huh?”

Richie nodded, dropping his head and grinning. He felt heat bloom in his cheeks. “You don’t have to point it out or anything.” 

“No, no, you’ve made it abundantly clear,” Eddie said, snickering again, and Richie laughed in turn. 

“Sue me.” He leaned forward, pressing his palms gently to the tops of Eddie’s thighs to steady himself. “It’s almost like I like you or something.” 

Eddie kissed him again, seemingly having nothing more to say to that. 

“Hey, hey—” Richie breathed, needing to make sure. He propped himself up on his hands over him, trying not to get too lost in the way Eddie looked settled down against his pillows. “You’re okay with this? With me—?” he trailed off, unsure of how to word it. 

Eddie looked him over calmly, pupils already blown out, irises nothing more than a pretty ring of brown around them. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and Richie felt another flicker of heat zip up his spine. Eddie took one deep breath then nodded. “I mean, it’s your birthday.” 

Richie grinned like he won the lottery and ducked back in to catch his mouth, scooping a palm under the small of his back to keep him close. 

The starting motions were easy. Kissing down the side of his neck, feeling him breathe and tilt his head back, measuring the rapid beats of his heart under his thin warm t shirt. He felt Eddie tense when he started to dip lower, then ease, suddenly, a heavy breath falling from his lips. He kept a hand at the back of Richie’s neck, grounding both of them, and when Richie started to sink back, intending to kneel on the floor beside the bed, he clung to him. 

Richie looked up to check on him, and Eddie, breath a little elevated, smoothed his hand over Richie’s shoulder blade light enough to make him shiver. “You can stay up here.”

Richie had to swallow hard to drown a little peal of something that rose in the back of his throat. Some kind of unnamable emotion, something akin to just feeling kind of loved. “Yeah,” he said, repositioning himself to stretch his legs back and get comfortable on his belly, sinking just a little lower.

Eddie was washed in orange gold sunlight, the sun still up but on its way down into the horizon. Beams of it fell over the bed like silk, and Eddie shifted lightly when Richie hooked his fingers in the waistband of his sweats, looked up at him to check, and got the silent go-ahead. 

His pulse was in his throat as he eased his pants down just to his thighs. Eddie didn’t seem eager to tear his clothes off just yet, so he settled them with the band across his pale thighs, and Richie tried to savor a look at him, not wanting him to feel pinned under his gaze. He closed his eyes and ducked down to stamp a kiss at the peak of one of his hip bones. 

He gave him a few moments to adjust there. A few tender kisses, a few snuck glances, quick little breaths. Richie smoothed a hand up under Eddie’s shirt and his breath hitched, dropping an arm over his eyes so as not to look. 

Richie started him off slow, tugging the band of his boxers, navy blue, soft, down just enough to kiss the crease of his thigh. He gave himself a moment there to look, to drink in the delicate curves and edges of his pelvis, the dark fan of hair on his stomach. He was startlingly pretty, Richie’s stomach swooping at the sight of him. At more than he felt he was allowed. He placed a hand placatingly on his hip and Eddie just barely eased his leg up, guiding Richie’s palm over him. Another look to check, but Eddie was still half hiding behind his arm. Richie dragged his thumb closer to him and Eddie pressed up again, so Richie took a breath and went for it. 

This was where things had gone sideways before. Richie tried not to think about that as he kissed at his hip, palming gently over him and feeling him warm up to the touch. He closed his eyes and stroked down the length of him a few times, fitting his hand over him the best he could through his boxers, hearing Eddie release a shaky sigh. 

“You can—” 

Richie glanced up, attentive, and hooked his free hand in the waistband of Eddie’s boxers. 

“Off?” he asked a little shakily. 

“Uh— yeah. Off’s okay.” 

Richie’s heart leapt into his throat. He nodded and pressed a reassuring kiss to his thigh before sitting up to hook his fingers in the waistband of his boxers, dragging them down gently over him and catching his sweatpants as he went, pulling them all the way off and letting Eddie kick them off his ankle when they got caught. Eddie propped up on his elbows as Richie settled back down between his knees, flushed to the tips of his ears. Richie couldn’t resist giving him a quick little kiss before getting back to business, feeling Eddie hold his breath. 

Richie hadn’t been faced down with a dick in some time. 

_ Hello there, _ he thought, to Eddie’s penis.  _ We meet at last.  _

Richie wished, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that his brain would be fucking quiet in delicate times like this. “Okay,” he sighed, shaking it off. “Can I—”

“Yes,” Eddie managed, covering his face again in a way that made Richie practically giddy with fondness. “Yes, I’ll— I’ll stop you if I get— yeah.” 

“Okay,” Richie said again, voice barely shaking, before taking him fully into his hand, sighing. 

Richie dearly didn’t want to be that guy who stared at a guy’s dick and thought it pretty, but fuck, if Eddie’s dick wasn’t kind of pretty. Three quarters hard and blushing at the tip. He gave him one little pump and Eddie hummed, some of that tension bleeding out of him with it. He inched his ankles closer to Richie’s sides, knees bending up, and pulsed in his hand when Richie did it again. He had to suck on his own tongue to keep from groaning. 

Richie worked him over like that for a moment, easing him into it until he felt him relax again. He thumbed up under the head of his cock, coaxing a bead of precum to the tip. Richie swiped it with his thumb, slicking him up, and Eddie’s thighs squeezed together around his waist. All good signs. All good things that shot straight to Richie’s dick and the pleasure centers of his brain, fogging his thoughts. 

Eddie bucked his hips and apologized quietly, but Richie could feel him winding up. His own nerves surged, figuring it was getting to be time to actually get to the goods here. 

“Hey, Eds?” 

Eddie sort of groaned in acknowledgement, thighs tensing just barely. “Yeah?” 

Chatty. Embarrassingly so, always. Richie couldn’t keep from saying something, if just to get it out there. “I’m— I’m a little rusty, so—”

“Rich, it’s okay,” he said lightly, almost laughing at himself. “I’m not gonna know the difference.” 

Richie glanced up to find him peeking down at him under his arm and wanted him so badly he felt the ache in his bones. He jumped the gun a little then, holding Eddie steady at the base and licking up the underside of his cock. Eddie shivered so hard he almost kneed Richie in the face, and Richie really couldn’t blame him, very vaguely remembering when that sensation was new to him as well. Richie took a deep breath, pulled his glasses off and set them somewhere on the bed, and gently pulled the weeping head of Eddie’s cock into his mouth. 

_ “Shit—” _

The gasp that pulled from him was so rewarding. Reassured, Richie spread his palms over the breadth of his hips and sank down a few inches onto him, pulling back to let him adjust. Eddie shifted in the sheets and Richie hummed, drunk and dizzy suddenly on how nice this felt. He pawed in the sheets for one of Eddie’s hands and guided it to the back of his head. Eddie took a moment to take the hint, but so tenderly curled his fingers in Richie’s hair that his eyes fluttered. He started to bob on him, not sucking too tightly so as to overwhelm him, but unable to keep from settling into a rhythm. 

Richie held onto him as Eddie placed his other hand in his hair, hips writhing. A gorgeous little sound fell from him, something pulled deep from his chest, and Richie slowed down to drag it out, wanting more than anything to make this good. He pulled back up to the tip and tongued at the underside of his cock, the cleft of the head, thumbs pressing at the thick tendon of his inner thighs. Eddie’s hips jumped and Richie tasted a bitter bead of precum, lapping at it. Eddie swore and Richie sank down fully onto him, softening his mouth, sucking harder when he reached the root of him. 

He was lost to the sensation in a moment, setting up a maddening pace that had Eddie clutching at his hair, struggling to keep his hips still. 

“Oh my  _ god,” _ Eddie moaned, cracking through the apparent guise of keeping quiet. Richie could feel him settling into it, heat radiating off his skin. His breath started to hitch, nearly panting, and Richie upped the pace, thumbs tracing idle circles into his hip bones, his own blood running hotter and hotter as Eddie tangled his fingers in his hair. 

He never pushed, never bucked his hips too hard or manhandled his head, only ever scratching gently at his scalp, hands twitching and hips jumping lightly, and Richie felt nearly overwhelmed with a strange sense of gratitude. The fact that Eddie hadn’t even asked for this, had wanted to try it himself first, then still let Richie have the reins for this one— it was so far removed from whatever the fuck he was putting himself through back in Boston. Richie wrapped his fingers around the base of him, massaging the slit of his dick with the flat of his tongue before sucking long and hard up the length of him, sinking back down, brain pleasant static. 

The sound Eddie made was going to stick in Richie’s memory for weeks afterward. He squirmed in the sheets, heels lifting just barely off the sheets, voice a little ruined. “Oh  _ fuck— _ oh my god Richie you’re gonna make me come—”

He sounded almost surprised, endearingly. Like he’d never thought this would happen. Richie felt a little crazy, so goddamn excited to be giving this to him, to be the first time, to be  _ any _ time, for fucks sake. To be the one unravelling him like this, piece by piece, and for Eddie to trust him enough to let him. 

Eddie was tugging at Richie’s hair so wildly Richie didn’t know wether he was trying to pull him off or hold him there, and maybe Eddie wasn’t sure himself. His thighs started to tremble, hot, punched out little  _ ah, ah, ahs _ falling from him, nails scratching heavenly at Richie’s scalp. Richie squeezed his eyes shut and moaned around him, feeling him pulse heavily on his tongue. 

_ “Rich,” _ Eddie cried, starting to unravel, and Richie doubled down, wanting to pull him through this, let him ride it out. As he slipped closer to the edge, Richie scooped his arms up under Eddie’s ass and wrapped his hands around the tops of his thighs, lifting up so he could buck into his mouth without choking him completely. 

_ “Richie—” _ Eddie whined with increasing urgency, hands, thighs, knees, cock twitching. “Richie Richie  _ hey— _ I’m guh—  _ Rich—”  _

Thankful for the warning but not wanting to pull off for anything, Richie braced himself, squaring his shoulders and dropping his tongue down to open up his throat. His own hips chased the pressure of the mattress, rocking lightly in time with Eddie. One of Eddie’s hands flew from the back of his head and clapped to his mouth, muffling the broken moan that spilled from him when he finally tipped over the edge and came hot and full into Richie’s mouth. Breathing hard through it through his nose, Richie sucked him down and swallowed, oddly overcome with affection as he felt Eddie’s ankles link delicately, heels pressing in between his shoulder blades to leverage himself into the final crest of it, a ragged breath as his head dropped heavily back to the pillow. 

After a second to collect himself and make sure there was no mess, Richie lightly pulled off of him and dragged the back of his hand across his lips, drinking in the sight of Eddie blissed out and panting in his sheets. 

His arm was thrown carelessly across his forehead, a gorgeous flush kissing his cheeks and ears and chest, threadbare tshirt rucked up over his midriff. His legs were heavy and limp over his shoulders, and Richie gently let them fall to the mattress as he propped himself up over him, met suddenly with all the intensity of Eddie’s dark gaze, pupils blown to smithereens, irises lost. 

“Did—” Eddie said, still a little breathless. His face screwed up slightly, eyes tracing over Richie’s mouth. He blinked. “Holy shit.” 

Richie patted his thigh affectionately. “Did—?” 

“You fucker,” he spat, venomless. A little out of breath. “I wanna— I wanna kiss you so bad but—” 

“What, you don’t wanna know what your own jizz tastes like?”

Eddie’s little hyena laugh came out so breathless and frazzled that Richie ached in the center of his chest, loving him so much it hurt. 

“Come here, fuck— can I—” 

“Yeah,” Richie sighed, overcome, head still stuffed with gauze. “Anything.” 

Eddie tugged him closer by the collar of his shirt, ducking his head to kiss at his throat, and Richie went easily, propped up on one elbow, the other hand falling protectively at Eddie’s waist. 

It was hard to let go for a moment, hard to shift the reins back over to Eddie, but Eddie made it easier when he palmed down his side, panting at his neck, and paused at the waistband of Richie’s pants. Richie closed his eyes and nodded, breath coming harder and harder, balancing precariously on the precipice of this. 

Eddie, emboldened, cupped Richie’s jaw with one hand and sank the other into Richie’s boxers. He nearly jerked in surprise, heat tracing through his very bones when Eddie got a hand around him. 

His eyes widened, pulling back to lock on Richie’s. “H— oh.” 

His nerves returned with a vengeance, stomach dropping (dick, the traitor, twitching helplessly in Eddie’s grasp.) “What?” 

Eddie swallowed thickly, gaze turning heady. “You’re just— you’re hard.” He sounded almost surprised. 

Richie panted, something close to a laugh. “Yeah, that just cleared all top the of the hottest moments of my life and shot right up to number one, Eds, yes I’m still hard.”

Eddie looked at him something like reverently and coaxed him closer with the hand not in his pants, making room for him next to him. “C’mere.” 

Richie was helpless not to oblige. He collapsed in the warm sheets next to him as Eddie angled his body toward him. He eased the waistband of his boxers down so he could pull out his cock and Richie squirmed, eyes falling shut. “Hey, you don’t ha—”

“Richie, Jesus Christ, let me jerk you off,” Eddie said hotly into his neck. “I would— fuck, I was planning to return the favor, but I— I was gonna make a whole thing of it but I didn’t know you’d still be this turned on, I— can I get you off?” 

Eddie Kaspbrak. Eddie Kaspbrak in his own voice, heavy and husky with the afterglow, just asked to get him off. Richie made a strange strangled little sound and nodded, lost to words, and Eddie twisted his wrist and readjusted to grip him overhand then started to stroke him in earnest. 

It took what should have been an embarrassingly short while for Richie to finish after that, clinging to Eddie, panting his name, lost to it when Eddie kissed reassurance at his jaw and held him through it.

Quiet moments later found them both panting and clutching each other, Eddie’s soiled hand draped loosely over Richie’s side so as not to make a mess of him or the sheets. He whined tiredly, and Richie scrubbed his hand down his back, making him shiver. 

“Need a nap, slugger?” 

“Shut up,” Eddie groaned, then got Richie breathless one more time by kissing him. One last surprise in him, it seemed. 

It wasn’t like it never happened. It was sort of a tossup. But the fact that Eddie still kissed him— Eddie, of all people, someone who, on paper, would be violently opposed to the idea— absolutely scrambled his brain. Eddie kissed him absolutely senseless until they were both a puddle of two people, wanting nothing more than to stay close and warm and together. 

Eddie sighed, heavy and content, and tucked his head up under Richie’s chin when he broke apart. “Fuck,” he muttered, and Richie beamed. 

“Worth the wait?” 

“I have been—” he snickered, and Richie had to hold his breath to keep from laughing too. “Fuck, I have seriously been missing out on that for twenty plus years?” 

Maybe it was just the giddiness, the disbelief that they’d finally broken the seal, but Richie ducked his head into Eddie’s shoulder and cackled. Eddie broke a second later and cracked up too, ridiculous, pantsless, feeling lighter and easier somehow about this. 

He’d thought he’d freak out. He thought he’d have to stop again. But here he was, happy and tired and blissed out, a total idiot with Richie shaking with laughter next to him and only fuelling his own.

They were getting dangerously close to something. And both of them were helpless to say what. 

A hot 

**SUMMER**

followed. Some things got much, much easier after that, once the seal was broken. A few others got that much more difficult.

Physically, it eased up. Still sort of shirts-on-or-in-the-dark, still careful, as careful as they could be, but excusable. In a way. The two of them, quite honestly, started spending more time with their pants off than on, unable to resist whenever the urge struck. It was wonderful, truthfully, but it opened up a new sort of vulnerability, lines crossed, new territory. 

New, perhaps most frighteningly, feelings.

Eddie was keeping them as close to the vest as possible, not wanting any of it to get in the way. But it was beginning to feel impossible to ignore as the months ticked on, as their patience grew thinner and thinner between visits, wanting each other around every waking and sleeping moment. 

Richie missed the chance to submit an audition video to SNL. Steve had advised against it anyway, and Eddie was right— his heart wasn’t in it. Not in that career move. The part of his heart that should have been in it spent time just hanging around his apartment alone in New York. There had been some frustrated tears when he missed the deadline, even when he’d been planning to. Watching it pass, missing the opportunity. He drank it off, promising he could hold out. Give LA another year, give Eddie a chance to graduate. He had one more year in school. 

Then who knows.

There was a certain fear there, in that unpredictability, and some feeble trust that they wouldn’t mutually let it slip away. 

**15 SEPTEMBER 2001**

**HESITANTLY PENNSYLVANIA, MAYBE JERSEY**

**2 ISH (?) AM, TIME ZONES SUCK, RADIO CLOCK SET TO PACIFIC TIME; UNSURE**

There had been several points along the drive wherein Richie regretted ever getting in the car. Around the 20 hour mark, he thought he might have been going mad, but realized he hadn’t eaten all day getting some grub in him should curb the vaguely homicidal thoughts at every bastard on the highway who shifted lanes without using a turn signal. It helped, as did the coffee, the absolute bucketfuls of coffee he’d consumed from every gas station he had to stop at, but he was fighting falling asleep at the wheel again as he crossed his last couple state lines. Once he’d well passed the midway point, he was longing for the refuge of Eddie’s shitty futon more than he’d ever craved anything. 

He’d been driving for over 30 hours, awake for well over 40, and swore as the darkness pressed in again over the trees that lined the highway that he was starting to hallucinate. Mostly deer, although that wasn’t too far fetched. Real or imaginary, as long as they kept out of the way of his shitty, exhausted little car then he was fine with them. Even if that last one’s face seemed a little off for your standard Appalachian deer. 

He was supposed to have flown out after his Friday meeting on the 14th. Considering the events earlier in the week, Eddie had begged him not to get on a plane. A reasonable request, given, but not one Richie accepted with much ease. He hadn’t seen Eddie in nearly two months. Money was a little tight for both of them, ticket funds hard to come by. He’d managed to get a refund from the airline when he cancelled (a miracle in and of itself), but the 200 bucks was burning a hole in his pocket, and he could tell from the number of phone calls and texts they’d exchanged in the days since Tuesday that Eddie wasn’t exactly settled in after everything. Not that he was expected to be. Not that anyone was. But the cruel fact that Eddie was stuck in New York and Richie was stuck rotting on his couch thousands of miles away from him didn’t sit well enough with him to keep him from doing something absolutely idiotic.

Richie had gotten the phone call at around six in the morning on the 11th, startled out of bed to answer it. His cellphone had been charging in the kitchen, dead again. He was still terrible at remembering to charge it. He’d find a few voicemails on it later, but the landline was what finally roused him.

_ “I’m okay, I promise,” _ Eddie had told him, sounding shaken and worried but just that. Okay.  _ “They’re thinking about sending everyone home for the day, but I don’t live anywhere near the financial district, I’m okay. Traffic looks— miserable already, it looks like a mess out there.” _

It had taken seemingly all day to even begin understanding what was happening.  _ “A plane crashed into a building downtown,” _ Eddie had reported early on. _ “I knew you’d see it on the news, I didn’t want you to worry about me. Wasn’t my building. It’s a big city. I’m okay.” _ He kept reassuring Richie of that, as if there was a chance that he wasn’t. Which had been frightening at best. At that point Richie had turned on the news, having a strange feeling. Made sure his phone was charged if Eddie called back. 

He did, later.  _ “I just heard there were two planes, I don’t know what’s going on—” _

The third call, from Eddie’s apartment.  _ “Richie, please stay home, don’t go anywhere today, I don’t know what’s happening—” _

Richie shook off the memory, still chilled to the bone thinking about it. He wasn’t the best at handling tragedy, especially not on a national scale. Even on a personal level, hearing first hand how terrified Eddie had been that morning and every day that followed since made Richie want to chew through steel just to get to him, claw through anything with his bare teeth and fingernails. 

So what was a two day drive? If he couldn’t fly, he did have a car that worked for the most part. He had his plane ticket refund for gas and snacks on the way. He had a habit of making rash decisions when it came to Eddie. He’d been too antsy during his meeting with Steve on Friday and had left early, much to Steve’s chagrin. After the past several days of useless fretting, the first couple of hours actually felt like a relief. He left as soon as he’d thrown a few shirts and a toothbrush into a duffle bag and had hit the road by mid afternoon for what was turning out to be one of the most miserable drives of his life. 

But Eddie at the end of it. That was what got him through it. Eddie, who had sounded, among everything else he must be going through being a New Yorker right then, downright devastated at the prospect of not being able to see Richie again for a while given the distance. 

_ “I don’t know when we’ll be able to,”  _ he’d said on the phone one night.  _ “I don’t know when the fuck things are going to get back to normal, I don’t know if they ever will.”  _

Richie could tell he’d been fighting tears, and that stung most of all. There had been another time a few months back when Eddie had called to admit he couldn’t make it out to LA for a different planned weekend on account of a business trip sprung upon him that didn’t cover travel expenses, and he’d broken down in tears right there on the phone with Richie. Unabashed that he missed him, that he hated all the planning and the plane rides and the schedule shuffling just to squeeze in a day or two with each other here and there, wishing beyond wishes that he could just call Richie from a taxi and let him know he’d be there in ten, no matter the time of day. It had nearly driven Richie to tears then as well, realizing for maybe the first time how worn down he was getting by the distance as well, success in LA or not. The career was great, whatever— the boy constantly left behind in New York was not. 

So Richie wasn’t going to sit back while Eddie was alone in his apartment, miserable and missing him and terrified with the rest of the country about the days to come. He’d run out of his own music miles and miles ago, having resorted to the radio a few times, even if just for something to do. Scanning through the local radio stations for something tolerable took his mind of things for a few precious minutes at a time. But as he approached the fringes of New York state and could swear he could make out the city skyline in the early morning mist, he fumbled for that old cassette in his glove box to remind himself one more time what was waiting for him when he arrived. 

Richie had been in love with Eddie for a long, long time. It was only then, with Billy Idol springing to life on tape, that he realized no matter where he was headed, if Eddie was at the end of it, he was headed home. 

The sun was rising again over New York when Richie pulled up to Eddie’s apartment building, two things that, a few days ago, felt a little unthinkable. 

Cruel that Richie had to do math after all of that to figure out what fucking time it was as he plodded up the stairs of Eddie’s building. His cellphone, with its final gasp of charge, told him it was a little after two in the morning LA time, so five AM here. If his calculations were correct. Who could honestly tell at this point. 

The hallway lights were off, pink morning light spilling down the hallway from the small window at the far end. Familiar green doors marched down the hallway, Richie not even bothering to check the numbers at this point as he dragged his beat up duffel bag behind his beat up sneakers. His back ached, his hips ached, his head ached— the only reason he could feasibly keep himself upright and conscious was the promise of collapsing onto that horrible creaky excuse for a mattress with Eddie tucked into his side. 

His duffle bag fell to the threadbare carpet with a whump as he knocked on the door, blinking a little too long and a little too slowly and swaying. 

“Eddie, baby,” he called, so sleep deprived at that point he sounded drunk. He knocked a shoulder against the doorframe, sure he was going to collapse on weak legs if he stood any longer. He heard some shuffling around through the thin door and hoped Eddie wasn’t fetching the metal bat he kept in the kitchen in case of intruders. He let his forehead fall against the cool wood of the door. “It’s just me, Eds, lemme in.” He dropped a few more noncommittal knocks and sighed, settling, then nearly collapsed right on top of him when Eddie yanked the door open. 

There were several seconds of confused shuffling before Richie was back upright, Eddie supporting most of his weight with his hands braced against his shoulders. Felt good to touch him, even if he looked impassioned with the fury of a scorned angel. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked, breathless, as if it was intended to come out angry and came out bewildered instead. He manhandled Richie inside and let the door fall shut, looking him up and down with such a mix of awe and rage than made Richie’s heart thrum. God, he loved him. He tried to kiss him then, delirious, and Eddie just barely dodged, holding up a stern finger when it was deemed safe to remove the support from Richie, who slumped a little against the inside of the door. “You scared the  _ shit _ out of me, Richie it’s— fucking five in the morning.” 

Eddie certainly looked it. Hair in a dark snarl sticking up at all angles, big tshirt rumpled and bagged out in the collar, boxers nearly hidden by the hem of it. Richie, stupidly, tried to lean in to kiss him again. “Surprise, big shot.” 

“Don’t— _don’t_ _‘surprise’_ me, idiot, I told you not to get on a fucking plane, do you know what airports are like right now? Of course you fucking do, if you were just schlubbing through Laguardia at fuck o’clock—” 

Eddie stopped short, mouth poised to deliver more verbal abuse and, honestly, kind of sweet concern, when Richie shook his head. He felt gummy, sleep deprived and happy and just glad to fucking be there, to not have to stare at the road any longer. 

“What—” 

Richie held up his keys, finger through the loop of one of his keychains. “Haven’t been to Laguardia since June.” 

Eddie stared at him, wide eyed and baffled. He replaced both hands on Richie’s shoulders, elbows softening and allowing him to angle more into his space. The realization dawned slow and beautiful on his face in the pastel early morning light streaming in through the kitchen window, blinking a few times in disbelief at Richie. “No you fucking did not. Richie.” 

“Present,” Richie said idiotically. He felt stupid in a pleasant way, brian turning off. 

“Do not tell me you just drove here from Los Angeles.” 

Physically unable to resist any longer, Richie bent down to steal a little morning breath peck from Eddie’s lips. “Fine then, I won’t tell you.” 

Eddie had the gall to slap him on the chest. “You fucking  _ drove _ here?” The way he looked at him, like Richie was the angel, could have cured cancer. Or something. Richie didn’t have cancer, to his knowledge, but if he did he felt like it would have left him then, with Eddie Kapbrak looking up at him like he was so desperately glad to see him. “Wh—” he blinked then shook his head. “Where the fuck did you  _ park?” _

“I truthfully don’t remember,” Richie admitted with a wheezy, exhausted laugh. “I’ll deal with the ticket later, right now all I want is to get the fuck out of my jeans and into your bed.” 

Eddie blushed good-naturedly at that and Richie was forcibly reminded that he was in love with him. Embarrassingly so. Maybe it was getting to be time to tell him that, or something. Maybe not the best decision while fast approaching his 48th hour on no sleep, but something to consider for later. 

“Yeah, Jesus fucking Christ— have you slept at all? Don’t tell me you drove the whole way without—” 

Richie dragged an imaginary zipper across his lips and Eddie threw his hands up exasperatedly, taking Richie by the hand and dragging him back to the nest of pillows and blankets that made up his bed. Richie noticed the pillow he usually used was settled across the middle of the bed vertically, as if Eddie had been spooning it. Richie’s heart thudded dully in his chest, a dopey smile sprawling across his face. It was wrapped in a heather gray pillow case instead of the white that matched Eddie’s plan sheets. Eddie was in the middle of fussing over his lack of sleep, but paused in the middle of what was winding up to be a rant when he followed Richie’s gaze. He quickly ducked down to try and make up the bed, which involved throwing the offending pillow off to the side and out of sight, cheeks red.

“You can’t fucking do that again, Rich,” Eddie said, his voice having lowered. Bedtime voice, quiet and soothing in a way, despite the cracks. Eddie’s voice always cracked when he was trying to be quiet. Richie sank down on the edge of the bed and started trying to kick his way out of his sneakers, and Eddie dropped down to untie them for him. Richie felt a surge of affection so strong rise up in him that it nearly knocked him flat. Eddie tugged his shoes off and set them beside the coffee table, and Richie lazily undid his belt and the fly of his jeans to shimmy out of them as Eddie got up and rounded the couch to the kitchen, the tap turning on a second later. 

“Here,” he said, still soft and cracky. “Drink this and then go to sleep, fucker. You’re so goddamn lucky it’s Sunday.” 

Richie took the glass and swung his legs onto the bed to settle in, finding the sleeping-puppy warm hollow Eddie had previously been taking up and sinking into it as he sipped on his water. Eddie slid the chain back into place on the door and joined him a moment later, and Richie abandoned the glass on the floor next to him immediately to make room for Eddie in his arms. 

“I can’t fucking believe you’re here,” Eddie muttered into Richie’s chest. Richie laughed dryly, overcome with affection for a second. 

“You still manage to sound pissed about that, dearest.” 

“I’m only a little pissed about it,” he admitted, flipping the blankets on top of them and snuggling up against Richie’s side in a way that made his brain feel like pure goop. “God, Rich.” 

“Just Rich is alright, we’re friends.” 

Eddie sighed heavily, his whole body lifting and collapsing with the drama of it. “Sleep.” 

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Richie muttered, pressing a kiss to the crown of Eddie’s head. He felt Eddie peck his collar bone and went warm and fuzzy all over, quickly pulling off his glasses to set them on the ground without disturbing him. 

He caught a glimpse of the abandoned pillow as he did, unneeded as Eddie was using Richie as his, and squinted, finding a familiar graphic half. It looked sort of like the art for a Kinks album he liked. 

“Is that my shirt?” 

_ “Sleep, _ Richie,” Eddie growled next to him, just threatening enough to scare Richie back into silent resignation. 

Richie slept solidly for the next ten hours. His head went pleasantly blank in that way it almost always did with Eddie by his side, thoughts, dreams, nightmares all put on pause to let him actually get some shut eye for once. A miracle, if anything. 

When he did finally open his eyes, the sun was blazing through the windows of the tiny apartment, and the bed beside him was empty. 

“Eddie?” he called groggily, voice all too loud and clumsy in the silence of the apartment.

“I’m right here,” came his voice from somewhere off in kitchen land. 

Richie was solidly not awake. It smelled like food, and somewhere in the back of his mind he could acknowledge that he was hungry, but when Eddie reappeared none of that mattered. He extended a hand out to him vaguely, drowsy happy as he approached the futon, still in his pajamas. 

Eddie, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee, bent a knee and sank down into the bed with him, tucked his other leg up. Perched, almost, before sinking back against the arm of the couch. He shifted the mug, took a sip, looked Richie over, and sighed lightly. Then said, matter of fact: “I love you.” 

Richie made a strangled sound, not unlike a rat being squeezed. 

The car crash, this time, it seemed, didn’t want to kill him. This one might be a miracle. 

“I’m in love with you, seriously, I—” he laughed, almost like it was easy, carding a hand through his hair, loose and free of gel. He looked away for only a moment, like he was letting it sink in, settle into the air, then looked back at Richie in a way that punched all the breath out of him. “Yeah, head over heels in love with you. I think I always have been. I know as kids we used to tell each other that because we were like— unnaturally close or something, all of us were, but I’m really, really in love with you, Rich. It’s not even scary anymore. I just am.” 

“Eddie,” Richie sort of pleaded, setting a hand on him somewhere. Leg, maybe, he didn’t know, he could hardly see and his eyes were blurring. “Eddie.” He realized he was crying, a few tears slipping free down his cheeks. Utterly overwhelmed. He was lost for words, able to do little more but scoop him into his arms. He vaguely heard Eddie laugh a little hysterically and tell him not to cry, reaching out with a coffee warm hand to scrub the tears from his face. 

“Dude I— I just woke up,” he sniffled, laughing a little too. “What the fuck—” his voice cracked then too. He needed a minute. Just wanted to live in a world where Eddie Kaspbrak loves him and nothing he can say can ruin it. “You— you—” 

“Yeah,” Eddie said, tucking himself into his side. “Yeah, I do.” 

“Wow.” Richie kissed his temple. “Eddie, I’m so sorry, I’m fucking— delirious right now—” 

“That’s okay.” Eddie tucked a lock of hair behind his ear and Richie melted another few degrees. “I just— wanted to tell you. I guess. I woke up a little while ago and you’re just— here. You’re here.” 

“Yeah, I am.” Richie dropped his head heavily onto Eddie’s shoulder. Reveling in it. “Fucking glad for it too.” 

“You don’t have to say it back,” Eddie said, sincerely. Like he did everything. “I just—” 

“I will,” Richie promised, and meant it. He sort of shuddered after that. “Holy shit,” he muttered, pulling Eddie away at arms length for just a moment. “Way to surprise a fucking guy, Eddie.” 

“You’re fucking telling me, asshole. You drive clear across the fucking country, because— what, Rich? You missed me?” 

“Yeah, dipshit. You expected me to sit by while you were up here dealing with all this shit? Of course I fucking missed you.”

Eddie looked at him. Richie felt like wet crepe paper, sticking to himself, breaking down into a colorful little mush. 

“What?” 

“I already told you,” Eddie said, and then left it at that. 

Richie could only stay another day. They sat with it, with that confession, quietly not mentioning it or Richie’s eventual departure. 

But life had to tick on eventually, even if what felt like mere hours later. 

Leaving was tremendously hard. Not only faced with the same drive in the opposite direction and without the promise of Eddie in his bed at the end of it, Richie almost didn’t leave. Every excuse in the book, every plea, even the suggestion that he could just drop everything and start living there with him posthaste, try for SNL once more, all got shot down. Eddie kissed him dizzyingly in the threshold before walking him out to the car, at least making sure Richie was awake before sending him off. 

_ He loves you. He loves you. He’s in love with you.  _ No loves-me-nots, all these petals were the good kind, and the flower was left bare on the option he’d always wanted. 

_ He loves me.  _

Richie drove home with those petals in his pockets and little else, buzzing on a low frequency nearly the whole time. 

He needed to tell him.

**30 OCTOBER 2001**

**LOS ANGELES**

**5:52PM**

It took a while to get comfortable flying again. Eddie had hell to pay in the airport with all the new security measures and nearly missed his flight, but arrived unscathed a few days before Halloween, surprised, as always, to find LA temperate when New York had his nose running every time he dared leave his building. 

Richie kissed him crazy in the car in front of the airport, putting perhaps a little too much faith in the general public not to glance through the windows of his shoddy Geo Metro lest they see two boys sucking face like their lives depended on it, but Eddie figured he was allowed to indulge a little. 

He was in love. In love with his best friend, sure, but sometimes the details didn’t matter. He told his best friend he was in love with him and he still kissed him, still touched him, still shot the shit with him over the phone every time he called, so it wasn’t like things were all that bad. Especially with the way Richie kissed him, the way his broad palms and long fingers held him when he did. Sweet god.

Richie had wound up upwards of seventeen times over the past month and a half. Over the phone, over text, once even starting out writing a whole fucking letter at his wobbly kitchen table before scrapping it, because how? 

How the fuck, even after all this, even after Eddie confessing, how the fuck on earth was he supposed to tell him? He’d spent so long thinking this was going to be a silent thing he just lived with, something buried so deep that the coffin had already dissolved and the bones were on their way to dust— only to have to undergo unearthing the whole miserable thing and act on it. 

It was so ridiculously easy to love Eddie and so unbearably hard to just say it.

They made it to the apartment. Richie couldn’t say it. They settled in for dinner. Richie couldn’t say it. They ate and had a drink. Richie couldn’t say it. Eddie offered to pick a movie and hole up on the couch, and Richie almost said it, threw up, then felt so ungodly sweaty and horrible that he, after doing his best to mask the fact that he’d just been vomiting, leaned out of the bathroom door to feebly tell Eddie he was going to hop in the shower and he’d be down to watch whatever once he was out.

He shed his clothes without waiting for a response as soon as the door fell shut, cranked the water temperature higher (already running, previously masking the puke sounds) and hopped in, drawing a tense breath. Glasses went on the toilet tank, eyes closed, Richie shivered. Tried not to think. Opened his eyes. 

The drain looked somehow menacing in the low light. It gurgled, and Richie jumped, a lump growing uncomfortable in his throat. He slid his palms down his arms, slick, trying to soothe himself. He’d heard of rats and snakes and all manners of things crawling up drains from sewers, but never here. Florida, maybe. And usually into toilets, not showers. He shuddered at the thought. 

He needed to ask Mikey about that. If he’d ever gotten up in the night to take a shit only to discover a wet rat scrabbling around in his toilet bowl. Sounded about the kind of thing that would happen to dear old Mikey.

_ Don’t be a coward, _ Richie chided, hesitating to turn around and wet his hair properly. He felt strangely exposed with his back to the gurgling drain. He squared his shoulders and closed his eyes. The water was still warming as he let it run down between his shoulder blades, down the backs of his thighs. Relax, creep. 

The feeling wouldn’t leave him. The thought to call for Eddie, if only for his own sanity, crossed his mind, but he shot it down quickly, not wanting to seem like a chicken. It was a shower, for fucks sake. The dim bathroom lights pressed warmly against his eyelids, the tile looking oddly red when he opened his eyes for a brief moment, tile and grout stained. His pulse picked up, and he swallowed, trying to brush it off. 

Closed his eyes again. Scrubbed his hands through his hair. It felt greasy, unwashed, good timing on the coward shower. He’d be humiliated if Eddie mentioned it. He started to relax as he gently massaged his blunt nails over his scalp, breathing out slowly through his nose, the water warming pleasantly. He pulled his hands away to reach for the bottle of shampoo on the rim of the tub and went shock still, breath catching. 

His hand was bleeding. Or his scalp was bleeding. Something was bleeding, he was bleeding, a stream of water-thinned red was streaking from his hand and spilling into the tub and when he flipped his palm over there was a wound and the shower water itself seemed to grow thicker and hotter and redder and—

“Ed-Eddie!” 

His voice sounded raw and scared as it bounced around the tile and back at him, blinking fiercely to clear his eyes of the image. He was distantly aware he was trembling. His hands had gone numb. He stared down at them, blurry, but unmarred, the vision having passed him by. The walls of the shower were still a faded powder blue, the tub white, the water clear. He cleared his throat, half hoping Eddie didn’t hear, but jumped and yelped when the drain bubbled as if to remind him not to get too comfortable. “ _ Shit— _ Eddie?” 

“Yeah?” Came Eddie’s voice, distant over the roar of the shower and through the door. “You get lost or something in there, Rich?”

A strange mix of relief and embarrassment washed over Richie as he heard Eddie knock a shoulder against the door. He pushed out a tense breath and raked his fingers through his hair, stomach feeling uneasy.  _ Shower blood not real. Eddie real.  _

He needed him. That was okay. He was okay with needing him. He breathed slowly through his nose. 

“Can you— do you wanna just come in? Keep me company?” 

The pause stretched a beat long enough for Richie to worry. He swallowed thickly, praying the request wasn’t too out of pocket. 

“What, you miss me already?” 

He couldn’t help but grin, unsettled as he was. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

The door creaked open, Richie’s heart jumping once more. A little different. It creaked on old hinges when Eddie shut it softly behind him. Richie drew his shoulders close to himself, self consciously scanned down the front of his body, hidden by the curtain. He inched a little closer to the wall of the shower as Eddie’s footsteps hesitated, paused. 

“Hi,” came Eddie’s voice, almost a little timid. “Everything going okay in there?” 

“Oh, dandy, now,” Richie said, a half-nervous titter in his voice. “Yeah I just— you can just hang out, in here, if you want.” 

“In—” 

“In the bathroom,” Richie said hurriedly. He thought he could hear his pulse. The bathroom felt a hell of a lot hotter now, Richie’s skin warmer even than the water. “Just wanted uh. Company.” 

Richie heard the creak of the toilet lid as Eddie settled in, sitting daintily on top of it. Richie reached behind him and inched the curtain tighter to the wall, closing off the sliver that might offer a glimpse to him, cowering in the shower like he was. 

“This is a little needy of you, Rich, I’m surprised,” Eddie said. His tone was kind, amused. Richie had to remind himself that he wouldn’t have come in if he hadn’t wanted to. 

Richie huffed out another self-conscious breath, unable to help it. “Don’t be.” He swallowed, jumping again when he caught a dim shadow in the corner of the tub shifted out of the corner of his eye. He drew in a sharp breath, arm brushing the curtain and making it flutter. 

Eddie shifted. “You okay in there?” 

Richie dug his nails into his biceps, feeling terribly sort of vulnerable. The lump in his throat hadn’t gone away. Better with Eddie in there, talking to him, but—

“Eds, do you ever get nightmares?” 

Eddie was quiet again. Richie did like it when he was like this sometimes, pensive, cautious, almost gentle. But not being able to see him induced a strange sort of anxiety in him, not helped by his sudden onset jumpiness. 

“Sometimes.” Now Eddie swallowed. “You’ve been talking in your sleep, Rich. I can’t tell what you’re saying, but you— are you having nightmares?” 

Richie eyed the drain, feeling small. Gulped. “Sometimes.”

Then came the sound of Eddie standing up, and Richie flinched. He had half a mind to beg him not to leave, then thought himself stupid for thinking Eddie would leave. Richie’s breath whistled through his nose slightly. 

“Um, Richie?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you want— could I— I mean,” Eddie tried, that certain shyness creeping back into his voice. “Um.” 

It was hopelessly endearing. The corners of Richie’s mouth twitched, wanting to smile. “Yes, dear?” 

“Shut up. Can I come in? There? With you?” 

Richie’s stomach flipped. He glanced down at himself again, the shoddy tattoo on his thigh looking like a weird, runny grey blob, the dark hair sprawled across his stomach, his chest, the odd dips and swells of his body, his too long legs. He half wished he could see at all, and was half glad he couldn’t. 

Eddie had never seen him naked. Bits and pieces, here and there, but really only ever down to the boxers. Usually with a shirt. Almost exclusively in the dark. He scratched at his armpit, feeling the coarse damp hair there, and tried to think about anything but what Eddie might think. 

“Rich?” Eddie’s little voice came again. 

“Aw, who’s needy now?” Richie said. It came off playful, but Richie was well aware that it came from a certain place of well practiced defensiveness. 

“Christ, asshole, do you want me to come in or not?” 

“Yes,” Richie said, then, maybe a hair desperately, “Please.” 

His head grew foggy after that. Maybe it was the steam of the shower. Maybe it was the heat rising off his pinkening skin. Moments flitted by during which Richie silently fretted. He thought he heard Eddie mutter a little “okay” and he maybe hummed in response, but that was all. He wished he’d put on music. He sometimes put a speaker on the sink when he showered. 

The little window in the shower looked out onto a deep, navy blue night, street far below lit by amber streetlights. Richie closed his eyes when he heard the curtain shift, trying with all his power not to look startlingly self conscious. The light in the bathroom was dim behind the cover of the curtain, which then slid back into place, ambient and warm.

Richie took a deep, settling breath, and opened his eyes. 

It felt like someone kicked him squarely in the chest. The breath wheezed straight out of him. 

“Oh— oh my fuck, you’re naked—” 

The usually sharp lines of Eddie’s face were softened by the blur of Richie’s terrible vision, but he could see his thick eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “W-” he blurted, wrapping his arms around himself immediately. “Was I not supposed to be? Did you want me to get in the fucking shower fully clothed or something, Rich, what the fuck?” 

Richie had also never seen Eddie fully naked. His heart nearly dropped out of his ass when he blinked again, catching the stark highlights off his pretty olive skin, his shoulders drawn up and tight, his breath a little uneven. 

_ Oh, oh god, he’s so so beautiful and I can hardly even see him.  _

“No, no—” Richie tried, laughing only a little. “Sorry, that was stupid, I just— I dunno. I was so worried that  _ I _ was naked I didn’t— even think—” 

“Worried that  _ you _ were naked?” Eddie said, incredulous. Richie was torn between being happy and devastated that he couldn’t see properly. “I— you’re in the shower, is this— do you not bathe naked, you weirdo?” 

“No, I do, just— fuck,” he breathed. 

Eddie was just sort of standing there. Richie’s heart was beating staccato against his ribs. 

They sort of talked over each other. 

“Uh— nevermind.” 

“Why were you— nevermind.” 

They sort of laughed. Richie was starkly aware that Eddie had near perfect vision, that he could see Richie in high definition, that Richie was stuck with these grainy, blurry, imprints of images. 

His hand was sharply warm against Richie’s arm. He sucked in a breath. 

“Fuck,” Eddie breathed. “You have goosebumps, are you okay?” 

“Oh, fuck off,” Richie said, defensive. 

“What?” 

“Of course I do, you—” he huffed, placing a shaky hand at Eddie’s waist. Holding his breath when Eddie flinched, then slowly relaxed. “Because you’re— come on.” 

_ “What?” _ Eddie insisted, sounding almost annoyed. “I what?” 

Richie placed his other hand on Eddie’s opposite hip and breathed out, trying to relax. “This is new.” 

“What? This? W—”

“Being naked and afraid around each other? Yeah, Eddie, it’s new. It’s— intimidating?” 

“Oh, come the fuck on, I’m not intimidating—” 

“I can’t even  _ see _ right now, you asshole, I’m naked and blind as a fucking mole and—” Richie sucked in a gasp when Eddie dragged a finger along his ribs. He shivered and shied away, gently clasping a hand over his side. 

“What the fuck are these tattoos?” Eddie ventured, sounding half giddy. 

He prodded at the line on Richie’s side again and Richie felt warm and cold and hot and frigid all at the same time, trying to divert.

“What the fuck is this  _ body _ , honey, goddamn,” Richie whispered, more earnest than he cared to admit. 

Eddie huffed. “What?” He squirmed slightly, running from the little squeeze at his waist.  _ “What  _ body?”

Richie gently smoothed his palms up his back, feeling his heady breath fill his lungs, expand his ribs, wishing dearly he could get a good look at him like this. Pretty. Eddie really was pretty, stupid gorgeous, drop dead in this lighting, Richie was sure. He almost wanted to snag his glasses. He could feel himself start to relax, inch by inch by inch. “You. Dumbshit.” He settled his hands around Eddie’s ribs. “This.” 

“Come on,” Eddie retorted. “I’m— scrawny, man, don’t—” 

“You’re awful pretty.” 

“You can’t even see! And p—  _ pretty?”  _

“Yes, fuck, I can see any other time, Eddie, y—” 

“Don’t call me pretty.” 

“Well you are pretty, even when I can see. Especially when I can see, let me tell you.” 

Eddie ducked his head and shook it slightly, and Richie couldn’t make out his expression. He smoothed his hands up his back, opening his mouth to say something when Eddie looked back up at him, voice softening. “I’m— admittedly a little overwhelmed.” 

Richie stilled his hands immediately. “Too much?” 

“No,” Eddie said quickly, covering one of Richie's hands with his own comfortingly. “No I— this is fine, just— you.” 

“Me?” 

“Yes.” 

“Little old me?” 

“Yes, Richie, I’m—” he exhaled, huffy, frustrated. Adorable. “I’m just— I am. I’m very— attracted to you.” 

He sure stuttered through that. It made Richie nervous for no reason. “So easy for you to admit it, huh?”

_ “No, _ asshole, it is hard, I’ve never— I didn’t mess around in college, I never got to do— this. And it’s you, I— get overwhelmed, sometimes, with you. Because I like you. I know I’ve said that before, I just— I do. I like this.” 

“This?” Richie just wanted to hold him. Sway. Maybe kiss his little ear. Eddie shivered sometimes when Richie did that, he kind of wanted to make him shiver. 

“Yeah. This. With you.” He lifted a hand, scratching behind his ear.

It was as soft as snow falling and sharp as a shotgun blast. Something told Richie

_ Now _

and he realized it was right.

All that fuss and it leads to this. Standing in the shower with him in the low light of his bathroom, over three thousand miles and nearly twenty years from where it started, and it lead to this. 

“Eddie,” Richie said, and Eddie looked back up at him, immediately noticing the change in his voice. His hands were trembling all of the sudden, the shakes spreading to his whole body, like something bigger than himself that had laid dormant nearly all his life was finally trying to escape. “I can’t even begin to tell you how in love with you I am.” 

The quietness of it surprised him. It had been so loud for so long, and when it finally came out, it was light, settling into something comfortable. Something that had always been there. He still couldn’t make out Eddie’s face, and maybe that was for the best, because Richie knew there was a deluge coming and he just needed to say it. “I tried to tell you once, you know. At Stan’s? You asked me after you puked your brains out, I knew you wouldn’t remember. But you asked me if I loved you when we were kids.” 

Eddie’s voice was the same kind of quiet. Tender— Richie recognized it then. This awful tenderness that was rare from either of them with all their walls and guards up, at least to the rest of the world. But safe here. “And you said you did?” 

Richie shook his head. Brushed Eddie’s hair back from his forehead. “No, I said I’d had a crush on you then. Probably— honestly, probably my first real one. But that I’d— I fell in love with you— I think it kind of started when we went to college. Because we didn’t really see each other at all in high school, it took me moving back east and seeing you in person again, even just every once in a while. But I’d— you’d lingered, somehow, you kind of do that for me. Like this— low hum I can’t get rid of.” 

Even through his near blindness Richie could see Eddie’s nose wrinkle. “You’re saying I’m— what, tinnitus?” 

“Yeah, you’re like tinnitus! Because even in high school, Eddie, even when I moved out to California, my ears were still ringing. Then whenever I’d see you it’s— bam. Deafening.”

Eddie laughed and the world was an okay place. “That sounds— kind of terrible? Deafening tinnitus?” 

“No, Eddie, it’s the best fucking thing on Earth. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.” 

Silence like a slow dance swung between them for a moment. Eddie wrapped his arms around Richie’s waist, Richie realizing for the first time that he was trembling too. They clung on to each other for a moment, Eddie working up the nerve. 

“I can’t believe you told me.” 

Richie sighed. “It— honestly only got more and more true after I did. So me telling you now is different. And I knew you wouldn’t remember.” 

“I— fuck, Richie, I wish I would have fucking known, I— everything after that—”

“I don’t think we were ready, Eddie. I think you can love someone and not be ready for— all that. It was too big for us. We had to grow into it.” 

“I hate how— sage you sound, sometimes. It’s infuriating— 

Richie cut in, a surge of energy thrumming through him. Excitement. “What, sexy? You think my sage words of wisdom are sexy? Should I keep going? You want my whole philosophy about love?” 

The tension in the tiny little shower broke when Eddie laughed again, Richie’s favorite thing in the world. Sure as hell wouldn’t mind tinnitus if it sounded like that. “Eventually, sure,” Eddie admitted, sliding his hands up to Richie’s shoulders to tuck himself a little closer to him. “Just in small doses, okay? Slow release.” 

Richie dropped his voice, bouncing his eyebrow. “Now that’s sexy.” 

Eddie audibly struggled not to “Shut up. I’m trying to tell you I want— this. For a while.”

The bomb landed. The last piece clicked into place. Richie nearly floundered, realizing what this meant. 

His voice softened once more. 

“A while?” 

Eddie nodded, cupping Richie’s jaw before letting his hands drift back to his shoulders, holding him securely in a way he felt in his bones. “A long while a long— a long time. I wanna stick with you Richie. I think I’m ready, I think I’ve really properly grown into it.”

All that fuss, for this. 

Richie couldn’t help and feel like it was all worth it. Couldn’t help the honesty. 

“You know what, Eds? Me too.” 

**21 NOVEMBER 2001**

**NEW YORK**

**10:33 PM**

Eddie had tried not to put too much thought into how he’d lose his virginity. That felt a little too premeditated, and like something that was a little weird for a guy to do, more a thing girls thought about. Then there was the gay thing, which kind of made things hard to consider in high school when it was on everyone’s minds. 

Bur for the life of him, he hadn’t thought he’d lose it on a futon on his 26th birthday. Let alone with Richie Tozier of all people. His sixteen year old self would combust on the spot if anyone let him in on that juicy little detail. 

He’d also never expected to fall asleep immediately after, a fact which surprised Richie a little as well. 

“Fuck,” Eddie muttered, embarrassed by it. He lifted his head slightly, bone deep comfortable. “How long was I out?” he asked, waking up in only a shirt with his head heavily on Richie’s chest, arm around him, having turned on the TV. 

“Like an hour,” Richie said, amused. “I must have done a damn good job if I took it outta you like that, jeez. You knocked right the fuck out, didn’t even give me a chance to say something weird and off-putting and make you regret the whole thing.” 

All in all, Eddie couldn’t have been more pleased that absolutely fuck all in his life had gone as planned. When laughter cracked out of him again (again, again, again, he was always fucking laughing these days) and Richie absolutely beamed at him, when they set to bickering in a tired, blissful little way in the comfort of Eddie’s shoebox apartment that was his, only slightly less than how Richie was his, he realized he didn’t want anything else to go as planned, if this is what letting go felt like. 

**31 DECEMBER 2001**

**LOS ANGELES**

**11:59 PM**

They were seconds away from finishing the countdown when Richie was yanked backward by his shirt collar and into the bathroom of Randy’s new apartment, pressed backward against the sink, and kissed like he wanted to be kissed every day for the rest of his life. 

Happy 200fuckin2, may all of them, all of them until the day he died, start like this. 

Eddie’s hands were steady and strong against his jaw, kissing him like he needed him to breathe for several spectacular firework moments, tasting like tequila and strawberry soda, and he broke off from the kiss with a dizzy little smack and Richie knew he was utterly screwed. “I should have been doing this every year for like a decade now,” he sighed, tipsy and heavy lidded, all his weight pressing Richie dizzily into the sink. “I’m making up for lost time.”

He dove in to kiss him again and Richie couldn’t save himself from the peals of giddy laughter that bubbled up in his chest like bottom shelf champagne, clinging to Eddie’s waist and indulging him for a moment more. 

“This was very suave of you, darling,” he said, taking Eddie’s chin in one hand and melted under the sappy, uninhibited look he gave him, “but what’s your plan for subtlety as far as  _ returning _ to the party? 

Randy knew, by now. Figured it out from watching him, figured it out from watching Richie during the in between months, noticing how bright he burned whenever Eddie was by his side. Of course he knew. Bill knew now, after a drunk confession when he visited once, in LA for something to do with that movie deal. He was sure Beverly knew. And Stan. And Richie was glad. Small circle of knowledge, but that was all they needed. That and each other. 

“You go out first, quick,” Eddie whispered hectically, like it was the most precious secret in the world. He turned Richie by the shoulders and gave him a generous little tap on the ass to usher him back out into the chaos of the party, and Richie decided then and there he didn’t want to kiss another goddamn soul on earth as long as he lived. 

And god willing, he wouldn’t.

He burst back out into the crowd, the party still in full swing, and was joined by Eddie at his side a few moments later, like he hoped he would be for all of forever. 

**16 FEBRUARY 2002**

**LOS ANGELES**

**10:27AM**

Eddie’s duffle bag had been through a lot. It sat, dejected, exhausted, beaten and battered and bruised from two years now of being dragged back and forth across the country and tossed into a corner of Richie’s apartment against the inside of the door, begging silently to be returned back home once again. 

Eddie stood with his head tucked under Richie’s chin in the kitchen, utterly still. Ignoring the minutes ticking by again, closer to the time printed on his boarding pass. Neither of them dared to speak for a while, savoring it, trying to drink in the last moments. Eddie closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of Richie’s skin and feeling vulnerability open up like a wound in his chest, the words leaking out of him. 

“I don’t wanna leave.”

Richie carded his fingers through his hair and made him shiver. “Maybe you don’t have to.” 

It hung in the air for a long time. Neither of them moved a muscle. Eddie knew Richie’s lease was coming up in the summer. Richie knew Eddie finished school in May. 

“Let’s get you graduated first, huh? No sense in upending your life and fucking off to LA for some stupid boy.” 

Eddie huffed. “Says you.” 

“Hey, I was running to LA to escape my feelings for a stupid boy, not to chase one. Totally not the same thing.”

Eddie tipped his head back, Richie sinking down until they were eye level. “I’ve been done chasing for a long time, I think we both know this is pretty fucking locked down.” 

“Is it?” Richie said, challenging, Eddie feeling his blood run hot under his skin. “Then let’s do something about that, why don’t we?”

**3 JUNE 2002**

**NEW YORK**

**11:12AM**

Richie idled in the Civic outside the brownstone. 

He’d only been there once before, just dropping by to visit Eddie before driving home for fall break of their freshman year of college. The building itself was nothing special, no different from any of the other doorsteps that marched down the street. It was strange to be back, if only for a handful of minutes to take care of a fairly significant loose end, strange to sit out in front of Eddie’s old place, where he lived all throughout high school and for several stints throughout college, only for him to be leaving it behind. 

Finally. 

Richie heard the front door slam and tore himself out of his mild daydreams to catch Eddie pelting down the stairs toward the car. He flicked the lock to make sure the passenger side was open just before Eddie slid inside, the door falling heavily behind him with a thunk. 

Richie hardly took in a breath to ask him how it went before Eddie surged forward and took his jaw in both hands, planting a frantic kiss on him hard enough to bruise. It was over in a heartbeat; Richie’s hands still hung awkwardly in the air when Eddie pulled away and slumped back against the seat, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Huh,” Richie said, a little dumbfounded. He wondered if that would ever wear off. If he’d ever cease being surprised and giddy about Eddie kissing him. He sure as hell hoped not. “I can’t tell if that means good news or bad news. How’d it go?” 

Eddie sighed like he was releasing the weight of something crushing, eyes fluttering shut for only a moment. “It went.” He lifted his head where it had been tipped back and turned to face Richie again, having slid over to the driver’s seat while he was inside. “You’re driving the first leg?”

Richie tapped the wheel. “Yeah, I can handle it.” 

Eddie nodded, dropping his head back against the headrest once again and settling in. He looked exhausted. Richie knew all the packing had taken it out of him, but it seemed deeper than that. His nose was outlined in the midday sunshine, profile stark and lit golden from the light streaming in through the windshield. 

“Eds?” 

Eddie hummed. 

Richie felt a twist in his gut, trying to steady his breath and sound as casual as he could as he started up the car. “What’d you tell her?” 

“That I’m moving to California. And that I would call her. Eventually.” He popped an eye open, sitting up to look at Richie’s nervous expression more fully, grinning. “I didn’t tell her  _ why, _ don’t worry. She’s not going to take a hit out on you.”

Richie laughed, more relieved than he cared to admit. “Oh, you didn’t tell her you’re moving in with your delinquent boyfriend in sunny Los Angeles?”

Eddie cupped his face again, looking him over with a certain softness in his usually sharp dark eyes that made Richie’s stomach a puddle of melted ice cream. “Devil’s in the details, baby.” 

Richie couldn’t resist leaning over to kiss him one last time, then again, then one more peck, until Eddie was laughing and swearing and trying to push him off. 

“We still have to get there, asshole, save it,” he chided, looking utterly unconvincing in wanting Richie to back off. Cheeks pink, lips parted, traitor smile lingering at the corners of his pretty mouth. 

Richie chuckled under his breath and resigned, pulling away from the line of buildings, honestly surprised not to see Sonia in her curlers and slippers bellowing out on the front porch like she had the countless times Richie had stolen her son away so many summers ago on bikes with baskets packed with snacks and adventure gear. This time jammed in a car with every earthly belonging Eddie cared to bring with him. He didn’t miss the way Eddie watched the building retreat into the background behind them as Richie started off down the tree lined street. 

“My mom, for one, is thrilled that we’re moving in together,” he said, and earned a surprised look from Eddie, effectively distracting him from the pressing fact that he was finally leaving New York for good. Richie beamed, putting on the voice of his mother for a moment. “Oh, Richie, little Eddie _ Kaspbrak? _ Little Eddie Kaspbrak from back in  _ Maine? _ Oh, that’s going to be so  _ delightful _ for you to have an old friend with you, I’m so glad!” 

Eddie wrinkled his nose. “Your mom does not sound like that.”

“She does. She’s still a very sweet lady. You should come see her sometime, I’m sure she and Went would love to see how the hell you turned out.” 

“And how did I turn out, Rich?” 

“I”m biased. Can’t say,” Richie said, but turned to kiss him one last time before getting out on the highway. “But if you’re asking for my personal opinion, I’m pretty damn proud of how you turned out.” 

They’d planned to split the drive over three days, spend two nights in motels. But after the first night, Eddie had wanted to plow through and just get there, and Richie was not one to argue. The motel gave him a skeevy feeling anyway; he could live with spending his next night in bed with Eddie somewhere semi-familiar. Their place. 

Eddie had packed light, all things considered. It was dark by the time they’d finally unloaded the car, most of the boxes shelved away in the second bedroom, bags and clothes in what had been Richie’s room for the past month or so. He’d had time to settle in to the new place, had gotten most of the furniture in order, had made sure Ziggy was comfortable and adjusting well in his old age. 

The plan was to get a second bed for “Eddie’s room,” which had a desk and a few other boring odds and ends scattered about it if only to keep up appearances if need be, but as Eddie dropped the final bag on the floor and flopped back into the bed Richie had been sleeping on alone for the past few nights, it became immediately that that second bed was going to get little to no use. Not from either of them. 

Just before laying back to finally settle in, Eddie popped back up and surprised Richie, who was firmly half asleep by then and jumped a little too hard. 

“Can we go to the beach?” 

Richie wanted nothing less. He raised his eyebrows, halfway through kicking off his sweaty sneakers in the low light of his (their? ooh. their) room, and blinked up at him. Exhaustion weighed heavy in his bones, ready to sink into the mattress and tuck Eddie up under his chin and sleep like the dead. “Right now?” 

“Please,” Eddie said, and Richie was done in. Sure. They were going to the beach. “I just— have something I want to do.” 

“It’s much more comfortable in bed, you know,” Richie teased, starting to sit up and force his foot back into his sneakers. “As romantic as it sounds in theory, getting sand in lowly places really kind of ruins the charm.” 

Eddie smacked him on the arm as he stood, unable to keep from rolling his eyes. “Don’t make me regret this before I’ve made it through one night here. Can we go?” 

“We’re walking,” Richie insisted, straightening his shirt and ruffling a hand through Eddie’s hair. “I’m not spending another second in a car until I absolutely have to.” 

“How the fuck did you make that drive all by yourself that time?” 

“Eh, I was young and in love. Outside of that, I have no idea, I think I repressed it.” Richie tapped his temple as he reached for his keys on the  _ (their!) _ nightstand. “The mind handles trauma in a funny way.” 

There was something Richie had always liked about the cool night sand. The shock of it always got to him when he first stepped onto the beach long after the sun had gone down. Almost like snow without any of the pain, dark snow you could walk through barefoot comfortably, shirt only stirred by a salty pleasant breeze. 

Eddie removed his shoes immediately, pausing at the edge of the empty boardwalk, surprised by it. Richie watched his face as he processed the feeling. He’d never been out on the beach at night. Richie had spent the past two years watching Eddie experience any number of new things. He sort of wanted to watch him experience everything and anything for the first time for the rest of his life, walk beside him for any number of new little surprises. 

Moonlight lit their way as they trodded across the sand, trampled by tourists in the day, settled now at night. They held hands quietly in patches of darkness, playing it off whenever they passed within sight of any passerby. 

“This is— fucking beautiful,” Eddie noted, taking in the silhouettes of the palm trees, the white crest of the rising surf. “I never really believed that, that the moon actually controls the tides. It sounds made up.” 

Richie shook his head, taking Eddie’s warm palm in his once again. “Nope, that’s all true,” he said, feeling an awful lot like a tide surging in under the gravity of his moon. “So, what brings you here tonight, good looking?” 

Eddie swung his hand a little, glancing down at the sand, damp now as they approached the foam. His sneakers swung in his opposite hand, the laces catching brilliant white in the blue moonlight. He paused just before they reached the surf, looking out over the expanse of the ocean. Richie had grown used to seeing it over the past several years of living here, had learned to associate it with the reek of rotting seaweed and the hot pressing crowds of obnoxious tourists, but they’d been blessed with an unusually calm night. Large waves crested and fell far out toward the horizon, a few clouds lit silver by the moonlight drifting in toward shore. No stars here, save a couple weak pinpricks, but the water multiplied the reflection of the moon, scattering light like shards of broken mirror atop the waves. Eddie tipped his head back and took a deep breath, dropping Richie’s hand to dig in his back pocket. “I wanted— I just wanted some sense of finality on something.” 

Richie’s brow furrowed as he watched him, switching hands with his shoes to place the object in his right hand, turning it over. 

“Is it overdramatic if I pitch this thing into the fucking ocean?” 

His inhaler. Something in Richie seemed to light up. His pulse picked up for no real reason. He didn’t even know Eddie had one of those things anymore, certainly hadn’t seen him use it for years. 

_ I know it’s useless, _ he admitted once.  _ But it helps. I— someday I won’t need it. _

So it was today. Richie’s chest glowed with pride. He set a heavy hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “I think, actually, that’s exactly the level of drama this situation calls for, Eds.” He squeezed his shoulder. “Kinda makes me wish I had something to symbolically pollute with.” 

Eddie’s eyes went wide, the moxie in them dying in a snap, replaced with concern. “Why would you say it like that? I wasn’t even thinking about that, I don’t want a dolphin to fucking choke on this or someth _ HEY—”  _

Taking matters into his own hands, Richie pitched the inhaler into the fucking ocean. 

Eddie watched it arc for a split second before turning to shove at Richie, looking at him in sheer disbelief. “What the fuck, Richie, that was supposed to be— you just— you just fucked up the whole symbolic—” 

Richie wheezed, wrapping an arm around Eddie’s middle and laughing, pointing toward the surf. “No, fuck, sorry, look— I have a terrible fucking arm. You have a second chance.” 

It had landed in the wet sand, the blue aspirator having made just barely a little dent in the landscape. Light glinted off it, something that wanted so badly to seem menacing but had lost all its power. 

“Redemption round?” Richie offered. 

Without a second thought, Eddie dashed into the thin layer of surf and scooped the thing up, wound his arm back, and launched it as hard as he could into the Pacific. 

Richie whistled. 

Eddie whipped around to look at him, his cheeks flushed, sea breeze lifting his hair in little tufts and whisps, eyes bright. He looked bigger than himself, shoulders back, lips parted, breath quick and strong in his chest. 

Richie loved him more than he’d ever love anything. And that no longer felt dangerous either. 

“Damn,” Richie muttered, eyeing the inhaler as it bobbed out in the waves, tumbling about. Still filled with enough compressed air to float. “You just love to show me up, huh?”

Eddie carded his fingers through his hair, smiling as he approached Richie again, water to his back. “Well, do you have anything you wanna let go of? Now's the time, if we’re doing this— movie sequence thing.” 

Richie shook his head, his own grin quiet. Easy. “Nah, not really.” 

Just something to hold on to. 

Eddie turned to face the water and sidled up against Richie’s side, slipping an arm around his back to hold onto him in turn. They stood there silently for a moment, tiredquiet from the drive, from the everything, and watched the inhaler dip and bob among the waves. Richie lost sight of it several times before it reappeared, almost as if it were drowning, taking with it some of those bad memories, some of the fear. 

He heard Eddie gulp beside him, and turned to find him giving him guilty look.

“What?” 

“I actually—” he gestured loosely out to the waves. “I kinda feel bad. The dolphins.” 

“Fuck,” Richie laughed, pointing to the inhaler, maybe ten feet out from the shore, pulled in and out by the tide. “Do you want me to go get it? Do you regret your symbolic pollution?” 

“I’m not asking you to go g—” 

But Richie was already stepping out of his shoes and pulling off his button up, wading into the water in his shorts and t shirt. Eddie barked a laugh and chased after him, swearing when he felt the initial chill of the water. The two of them fought through the low cresting waves near the shore, throwing scoops of water at each other to slow each other down, making a game of chasing the inhaler down before it sank. 

It was familiar in a way Richie couldn’t place, familiar being tossed around in cool water with Eddie, playing like little kids. Chicken or Marco Polo, maybe, pool games. He didn’t remember Derry having a pool, but maybe his memory was just getting hazy as time ticked on from their Derry days. Eddie snagged it first, victorious, and Richie chased him out of the water, both of them soaked and heavy. He tried to snag it out of Eddie’s hand, devolving into a crude game of keepaway. The moment he stole it away Eddie pitched himself at him, overbalancing him and sending them both toppling into the sand, Richie sprawled on his back in the sand, Eddie practically crying laughing on top of him. Richie almost drowned him in kisses, tugging him down by the cheeks to taste the saltwater on his lips, managing to get sand in all manner of lowly places. Their laughter echoed out across the waves, dissolving into the crash of the bigger swells toward the horizon, softened by thickening clouds. 

The inhaler was finally tossed carelessly into a beach trash can on the sidewalk, crammed in with the old Pepsi bottles and Rocket Pop wrappers. 

Richie and Eddie trudged home soaking wet and bone tired, hand in hand or hand in arm or shoulder to shoulder, never separating for a moment, rinsed quickly and quietly in the tiny shower, and collapsed into bed, limbs tangled in each other, legs heavy, minds pleasantly blank, a low peal of thunder rocking them to sleep.

**SOMEWHERE**

Eddie’s shoes squelched in muck, a sick sweet scent of rotting foliage wafting upward. The riverbank gave way quickly into shallow murky water, a harvest moon overhead lighting the scene yellow. Something stirred in the water, something small and dark, and Eddie turned to look at it, having trouble at first discerning what it was in the dimness. 

Then it blinked. 

The turtle looked at him, yellow lines carved into it’s dark head like driftwood grain, orange eyes glassy. Omnipotent in a strange, empty way. It began to open its mouth, it’s stiff jaw hinging slowly enough that Eddie thought he might have heard the creak of rusty hinges, when it was snapped up. A streak of black and orange passed through the vision of Eddie’s mind, snarling. A fox. When it turned it’s narrow head, in its teeth was the turtle, its tree trunk legs paddling slowly, kicking, clawing, uselessly defending itself rather than hiding in its shell. Eddie stood frozen, legs locked into the river muck, shoes surely lost to it. Stuck. The fox locked eyes with Eddie, its yellow gaze something sinister, something more predatory than it should have been. No mere matter of the food chain, something motivated. The turtle made no sound as the fox sank its teeth into its shell, the bone-crunch of it ringing across the water. It’s head tossed violently, long neck stretching and twisting in pain, scales of its shell peeling up like flakes of burned wood and plunking into the ripples of water at the feet of the fox. There was no blood— only the sound, the crack and crumble, the swish of the fox’s tail skating across the surface of the water. Eddie began to shake, stomach twisting sick, somehow unable to look away. After several tense moments, the fox dropped the turtle with a plunk into the river, where it sank, head limp, shell shattered. The fox’s unnaturally bright gaze never left Eddie, the orange eyes glowing like beacons across the river, extending bank to bank.

It laughed. Or brayed, or snickered, some animal sound that was uncomfortably close to human laughter, narrow shoulders shaking, thin nose dipping down toward the water as if to recapture its limp prey. But it was finished with the turtle. The laughter turned into a rumble, a growl, a low sound that Eddie didn’t hear so much as feel, a quake in his bones that could have wrenched and rattled his very joints apart from one another to leave him in a heap if he wasn’t so frozen in fear. His pulse pounded in his ears, temples, fingertips, as the fox began to lift its snout. 

The top half. It’s bottom jaw remained slack, angled downward in a thin v, while its mouth rose, then peeled backwards, the wet black nose rolling back between its eyes almost like the petal of a flower, thicker and thicker yellow rows of teeth revealed as it went, stretching back over its head, the mouth splitting up to its eyes, further, going back to reach the ears, and the laugher only grew louder until a light began to appear from within, from deep in its razor lined throat, a light calling for home, calling for come back, calling for prey once dropped in the water.

Shock roused Eddie in an instant, lightning flashing and illuminating the room. He struggled to get his bearings for a few tenuous moments, jarred by the unfamiliarity, the new setting, the rain skating across the window at a slant outside. His breath heaved, a hand on his chest, sheets rucked up around his hips. 

“Eddie?” 

Richie’s voice. Tired. Groggy. Home. 

Eddie breathed a sigh of relief, feeling Richie paw at his hip, then his side, trying to find him in the darkness. “Right here.” He started to settle back down, pulse still uncomfortably fast under his skin. 

Half asleep, Richie muttered something, hooking a hand over Eddie’s shoulder to roll him close once he laid back down, the nightmare already retreating to the far recesses of his brain. “Baddream?” 

“Yeah,” Eddie said, shivering when Richie pressed close to him. 

Bad dream, but the details of it growing murkier in the passing seconds of consciousness. 

They’d fallen asleep together naked after their shower; Richie’s hair was still damp and chilly when he nosed under Eddie’s jaw, face pressing into his sternum. 

He breathed in deep, settling, stroking at Eddie’s side, his shoulder, arm, hip. All over, bringing him down tick by tick, mumbling something incomprehensible, something gentle. Something like “no more,” and though he wasn’t sure what he meant, every part of Eddie believed him. He breathed out as well, sinking into the mattress. Their room, their bed. Things Eddie hoped never changed. Richie sort of snuffled, lifting his head slightly. 

“Sissit raining?” 

Eddie listened for a moment. Thunder rolled lowly over their apartment, the rain smattering on the roof and against their window. Wind whistled outside, shifting through the dry leaves of the palms like a shuffling deck of cards. “Yeah,” Eddie whispered. “It’s raining.” 

“Weird,” Richie mused, his voice soft and gravelly. He sighed like a big dog on a sunny porch. “That never happens here.” 

“So they keep telling me,” Eddie said, shifting so he could hold Richie, sink a hand gently into his hair. Richie wrapped his arms around Eddie’s middle, stacking their thighs, and sighed into him, his skin warm, eyelids fluttering. 

Sometimes, it felt like Eddie had been running for a long time. To safety, from safety. But here it felt different. Safe how he chose, safe, finally, in a way that was bone deep-relieving. Sanctuary.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do i even need to tell you that chiquitia by abba was mentioned in this chapter? i cannot count the number of times i talked about chiquitita. its a good fucking song
> 
> thank you all for sticking through this as per usual, i'm constantly blown away by the response to this!!! this took me so long but i think you can see why, holy shit. i wrote about 8 differnt versions of this chapter, scrapped most of them, and worked really hard to get this to a satisfying ending. sometime over the summer im going to work on a (short!) sequel to ilmuah as well, so keep your eyes peeled for that!! 
> 
> i've now gone back and linked fanart to respective chapters because wow???? wow????????? that warms me like nothing else and i am desperate to share that art with everyone everywhere all the time.
> 
> sorry to make you read more words after this: again-- please go to bed. thank you for reading, and see you again soon :)


	31. EPILOGUE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy belated valentines day! 
> 
> here it finally is. thanks for joining me on the ride

_ “I’m bringing someone with me this year, actually.” _

_ “Oh are you?” Maggie asked, coy, delighted. Undeterred by the previous unfulfilled promises of bringing someone home over the years. “Someone special?”  _

_ “Yeah,” Richie sighed, worrying a nail between his teeth. Eddie was in the shower, Richie was alone in their living room, but felt the need to be quiet about it. “Someone special.” _

  
  


**23 NOVEMBER 2004**

**WILLARD, MISSOURI**

**6:32 PM**

Drawing in an even breath to settle his nerves, Eddie sank his shoulder back against Richie’s arm, standing as close to him as he dared in the crowded airport. It dawned on him that they hadn’t kissed since they’d left their apartment and wouldn’t again until they were safely inside his parents’ house. Preferably, perhaps necessarily, behind the closed and locked door of Richie’s teenage bedroom. 

Jaw tense, Richie’s head was on the swivel. He’d voiced several times that, as much as he loved visiting his parents, he dreaded nothing more than running into someone from high school in the airport or otherwise. With him effectively distracted searching for familiar faces he hoped not to find, the task of locating their suitcase was left to Eddie.

“I’m not faulting you for it, but I still can’t fathom why we had to check a bag for a three day trip,” Richie said, his own duffel slung over one shoulder, containing just about everything he’d brought for himself. 

Eddie watched as the suitcases from their flight dropped onto the carousel, scanning silently for theirs. “Never hurts to be prepared.” He picked at a thread on the cuff of his coat sleeve. It felt odd to be dressed for the cold again, having dragged the old thing out of the back of a long forgotten closet. Richie had hardly cared to don a denim jacket, one that certainly wouldn’t save him if it snowed. In the checked bag, yes, there was an extra coat for him, something heavier. Eddie knew he’d complain of the cold eventually. He glanced up to find Richie looking at him, eyebrow cocked. 

“What?”

“Prepared for what, exactly, an impromptu trip to Europe?” 

Eddie felt color flood his cheeks, looking resolutely back toward the carousel. He gnawed on the inside of his cheek, then sighed. “I wanted to bring wine.” 

“Wine?” 

“For your parents.” Eddie glanced back at him once again, catching his smirk. “Because I’m meeting your parents, Richie, it’s a nice gesture.”

Over all the years Eddie had known him, Richie had never lost the potent slyness in his face when he caught Eddie red handed doing anything that made him remotely bashful. It looked painfully good now on his handsome face as they meandered toward thirty, the slightly thinner frames of his new glasses opening up the twinkle in his eyes. “I knew you were hiding something.” 

“I wasn’t  _ hiding _ anything. We live in California, the vineyards are nice there, it’s a nice gesture. Apparently the climate there is similar to Italy or something, it makes the grapes— superior. Not like whatever grows here.” 

Richie set a hand on his shoulder. It was outwardly a very friendly gesture, but soothing nonetheless. “Eddie, you met my parents in elementary school, you don’t need a  _ gesture. _ My mom has watched you throw up ice cream on the back porch because you tore through a sundae too fast, impressing them is the last thing you need to worry about.” 

Eddie pressed his mouth into a line. “This is different. You know it's different.” 

“Someone’s nervous, huh?” 

Eddie opened his mouth to retort, only for Richie to dip off, having spotted the suitcase before Eddie. He toyed with the straps of his backpack and watched Richie gently shoulder his way to the front of the small throng from their flight to grab it, pulling out the handle and wheeling it over. 

_ I think Mom will handle it fine, she just may need a second to wrap her head around it,  _ Richie had said in one of their many fretful conversations on the topic over the past two years. Because they’d been talking about it for the past two years. Fucks sake.  _ Dad— I really don’t know. I really don’t know, but I think once Mom has a second and maybe once they talk about it he’ll come around. I think. I really don’t know. _

Eddie released a shaky breath, taking the handle from him. Looking him over. Richie looked slightly different against the backdrop of the tiny airport, hunched under the sterile fluorescents in a way he never was in the California sunshine. Not anymore. 

“I have perfect rights to be nervous.”

“Think the wine’ll help? Three Glass Eddie’s a bold little fucker. You and Mom’ll be commiserating about the pain in the ass that is being in love with a Tozier in no time.” He braved a smile, putting on that faux confidence Eddie had learned to pick out from his genuine self a long time ago. Carefully chosen words, schooled mannerisms, hyperawareness. 

Richie had been putting on a convincingly brave face about it as of late, most likely as a response to Eddie’s inability to hide his own nerves about the whole event. But his facade was cracking considering how many trips he took to the bathroom on the plane, how many mints he’d popped once he’d returned to his seat. Not airsickness. Eddie’d watched him take his dramamine that morning.

_ We’ve been together for three years,  _ he’d said in October, on the day it officially became three years. A kiss brushed Eddie’s knuckles, lighting him up.  _ I’m not letting you spend another holiday cooped up alone here because you’re afraid they might assume something.  _

The two bedroom apartment, the roommate moniker, Richie’s current writer’s apparent knack for vaguely skeevy jokes about women and occasional apparent girlfriends; all defenses against assumption. Now that the cat was wriggling its way out of the bag, at least to Richie’s parents who firmly believed them to be childhood-friends-turned-long-term-roommates, Eddie had felt sicker and sicker and sicker about it.

Richie did have a certain knack for romance. Try as he did to deny it, there was a soft spot in him for a Hallmark movie kind of love. Eddie came home to flowers sometimes, though Richie never handed them to him directly, dressed them up in an old whiskey bottle on the kitchen table. He liked to dance, even if he tried to make it into a joke when he spun Eddie around their living room. He got sickeningly domestic when he cooked, when he wrapped his arms around Eddie’s waist and swayed as he helped with the dishes. 

He referred to himself, Eddie, and Ziggy as their little family.

And if that didn’t unravel Eddie completely. 

So this step was important for him. The Meeting of the Parents. Bringing someone, even a boyfriend, god forbid, home for the holidays. Something normal couples did, something that was always a big plot point in the chick flicks Richie pretended to know nothing about. Though unspoken, it had been established wordlessly long ago that ever telling Sonia was a no-go. But this was something Richie wanted, a milestone of sorts he’d been silently pleading to reach for years now.

It had to go well. 

“Eds?” 

“Huh?” 

“I lost you there for a second, you okay?” 

Eddie blinked clear the fog from his brain and shook his head, looking up at Richie. Backlit by the ugly airport fluorescents, angel, always, in his own right. Sometimes more of a little demon than an angel, but nothing was fun in black and white. Eddie preferred color. 

“Yeah, you’ve got me. Cabs are out this way, let’s— just get there first.”

Richie put on his brave smile again and Eddie had to consciously keep from lifting up on his toes to peck him, to so much as cup his cheek and reassure him of something, he didn’t know what. Instead he sort of nodded, bumping Richie’s arm with his own and leading the charge outside to the curb. 

And there was the Tozier household.

Eddie had never been to this house. The whole ride, he couldn’t help but imagine the house in Derry. The image was hazy, overexposed, something having gone wrong in the dark room during the recovery of the memory— but there had been a porch, a porch swing, a line of well kept bushes. A small garden in the side yard. The shutters were green, maybe blue. He thought they’d been repainted once or twice, or maybe it was the inaccuracies of his own memory. He somehow found it within himself to be surprised that this house, halfway across the country and fourteen years later, looked entirely different. A little two story on a corner, a rust colored garage door, a small backyard mostly contained neatly within the bounds of a well worn wooden fence, unpainted. A willow tree rose over it on the street side, it’s branches dripping and spilling over the fence, narrow little teardrop leaves scattered against the curb, pale bellies exposed to the sinking Autumn sun. 

He noticed as they pulled up in the cab that he was trembling slightly, a low hum in his blood. It was oddly detached from the usual awareness he had of his body, something more confined. Bone deep. Richie came around to open his door for him and broke his focus on the little house, his silhouette comforting against the overcast backdrop of the sky, an arm braced over the top of the taxi. 

“Hey, hot stuff,” he said, voice low, private and comforting. “Do you need a second before we go inside?” 

Eddie looked him over. He shook his head, snagging his backpack from beside him. “No.” Richie backed up to give him room to clamber out onto the curb. Eddie shouldered his bag. “Let’s—” he hesitated, glancing at the willow tree. His voice sort of died out there, whatever he was planning on saying forgotten.

Richie paid and tipped the cabbie, tapping the top of the car to send him off. 

Once the car was out of sight, he slipped his fingers between Eddie’s, sizing up the house himself. Eddie could practically feel the nervous thrum of his blood in his palm, warm in the November chill against his. They stood there together for a moment, hoping for the best, bracing for the worst, trying to remember that at the end of it, either way, they’d have their little trio family and the California sunshine and the good vineyards and each other. “Let’s.” 

Eleanor was still alive, which was a marvel in and of itself. Eddie hadn’t believed Richie when he’d told him that, couldn’t believe that the kitten he’d known for under a year before Richie moved away was somehow sixteen and, according to Richie’s parents, thriving. She chirped as soon as they opened the garage door into a warm little kitchen, stiffly ambling over to nudge up against Richie’s shins. 

“Holy christ, that is an old cat,” Eddie said, feeling the need to say something, afraid of any silence to allow himself to overthink.

Richie gingerly bent down, Eddie placing a hand on the duffel bag slung over his shoulder to keep it from swinging around to his front, and scooped Eleanor into his arms. Careful, one large hand fitting under her chest, the other supporting her little white feet, then cradling her like a baby. She seemed almost the same size against him as the first time Eddie remembered seeing her, when Richie had insisted he come over and meet the new kitten. Richie, then twelve, had fit his hands under her armpits and lifted her up, her tiny fuzzy little body held aloft in front of him, before cupping her against his chest. It was like they’d both grown together. Eleanor still fit comfortably in Richie’s arms. 

“She looks like an old sweater,” Eddie said needlessly, timidly reaching out to stroke down her back. She sort of mrrped, curious, sizing Eddie up. Eddie smiled, half delighted, nerves soothed very momentarily. 

“I wonder if she remembers you,” Richie said, quiet, almost like it was a secret. Eleanor’s ears perked up, two orange triangles set high on her head. “She usually runs and hides the first time someone new comes over.”

There was a shuffle, the two of them went silent and still, then a voice, familiar and strange all at once. 

“Richie?” They heard from another room. “Is that you?” 

Maggie Tozier appeared from around a corner and Eddie’s nerves returned with a vengeance. Richie turned toward her, unconsciously hiding Eddie from view behind his duffel bag and the breadth of him, and Eddie consciously did not try to make himself any more visible. 

“Hi, honey!” Maggie said, her voice easy and kind. Richie took a half second to set Eleanor gently down on the ground before leaving Eddie in the doorway to hug his mother. 

“Maam  _ Margaret,”  _ Richie said, beaming, the now perfected Irish lilt easy on his tongue. “Lookit ya, you get taller since last I saw ye?” 

Eddie watched them hug, detached again. Maggie had aged gracefully, her still red hair, always worn long down her back and held back by headbands or wraps or bandanas, had been cropped just above her shoulders, the texture in it a little wilder, the ginger just touched with a stray tinsel strand of silver. Her face was hidden briefly in Richie’s shoulders, but Eddie could see her rock back and forth on her flats, squeezing him, taking him in. He hadn’t been home in a year. “I missed you, I was hoping the weather wouldn’t set you back too long.” 

Eddie itched his arm, feeling suddenly, actually, very itchy all over. Back in his body and  _ itchy _ about it. Maggie held her son back at arm’s length for just long enough that, from the corner of his face that Eddie could see, he had a moment to look sheepish. Maggie looked nothing short of proud. “You look great, I’m almost tempted to ask if  _ you _ got taller, look at you.” 

“I, yeah—” 

“And you brought—” 

She guided him out of the way, and there was Eddie. The door to the garage was still open behind him, the cold draft from the outside freezing against his back in the warmth of the kitchen. 

Her voice was hushed. “Oh.” 

Maggie looked at Eddie, her eyebrows turning up questioningly, and Eddie felt the color drain from his face, dizzy. She glanced back to Richie, then between the two of them, pointing a finger, recollection dawning on her slowly. Eddie nearly jumped when she gasped, her hands coming together over her mouth, fingers steepling (her nails were painted a terra cotta sort of orange, her wedding band was a very simple gold set with a modest diamond) thinking this was it, this was the beginning of the end, things were about to go badly, when—

She smacked Richie’s arm. “Shut your mouth. That is not little Eddie Kaspbrak.” 

“In the flesh,” Richie confirmed while Eddie felt like withering, then Maggie darted around Richie to pull him into a hug as well. 

“Hi—”

Eddie stiffened, Maggie hummed, squeezing him tightly, too tightly, maybe, for a moment just long enough that it hurt something non-physical inside of Eddie, then held him too at arms length. “Oh, look at  _ you! _ This is— Richie, I didn’t expect you to bring Eddie with you! Oh my god, look at you, when’d you get so fucking tall?” 

“Say that once more, Ma, he doesn’t get to hear that often,” Richie said. 

Maggie waved him off, fretting over Eddie in a way that made him feel like he’d swallowed a handful of live bees, something he wasn’t sure was really good or bad or just weird or uncomfortable or or— he didn’t know. It was a brand new feeling. 

“It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Tozier.” 

“Mrs. Tozier, don’t you dare,” she said, tapping at his arm. “It’s Maggie, dear we’re all adults here— Went!” She called over her shoulder, and then there was Richie’s dad. 

And— wow. Had Richie outgrown him. Went looked the same, a little grayer, but the mustache and the glasses and the button down and tie and slacks were all the same, but he was now only a few inches taller than Eddie, easily eye level with him, which felt immensely strange. 

“Look who Richie brought home!” 

_ Home, _ Eddie thought distantly, strangely. 

Went laughed warm and full, a sound Eddie remembered so faintly but which slingshot him back to childhood weekend afternoons in their old kitchen, and rushed in to pull Eddie in as well. “My  _ god,  _ do you look like your dad, holy hell.” He clapped Eddie twice firmly on the back, then pulled back from him, one hand resting on his shoulder. “How the fuck are you doing, kid?”

“I’m— I’ve been good, I’m good.” 

Maggie’s northeastern accent was thicker than her husband’s, pleasant and comforting when she spoke. Eddie very nearly felt himself relax when she pipped up again, hand on Richie’s arm. “You know, Rich, your dad was worried you’d eloped with some actress without telling us with this whole  _ someone special _ business, but I’ve gotta say, this is a wonderful surprise.” She looked fondly at Eddie in a way that tore through him, face paling. “I’m so glad you could make it, honey.” 

There was the silence. The lack of Richie saying anything, pausing, hesitating, was so unbearably loud that Eddie wanted to flinch. 

“I, uh— actually,” Richie fumbled a little, and Eddie wasn’t sure how much he could back him up here. Richie floundered for a moment, and Maggie looked at him curiously. Elearnor chirped, ignored. 

“Oh,” Maggie said, and Eddie’s stomach seized. “Did something happen?” 

Eddie remembered Richie recounting the story from years back, the first time Richie had wanted to bring a serious girlfriend home for Thanksgiving. Sandy, he’d called his parents to tell them all about Sandy, to ask if he could bring her with him when he came down, only to be dumped a week later, a few weeks shy of the date, a few moments shy of asking her. She seemed to be referencing that, worried that Richie had just suffered another heartbreak and, maybe, had called on Eddie instead so as not to come home empty handed. 

Of course she didn’t get it on first glance. After all, they were the ones working so carefully to avoid any assumptions.

It tasted wretchedly bitter on the back of Eddie’s tongue. The room was starting to spin.

“No, no, we—”

“Mrs. T— Maggie?” Eddie cut in, resisting placing a placating hand on Richie’s arm. “Could I use your restroom, please?”

“Of course, here—” she placed a hand on his shoulder and pointed him down the hallway. “Went, pour the boys something to drink, let me show you— we were just sitting around the library, if you two wanna have a seat and some wine in a minute!” 

“Oh, Eddie actually—” 

was all Eddie heard before he closed the bathroom door against all the sudden commotion, ears starting to ring. 

For all the lengths Eddie went through to find a bottle of wine that said  _ Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Tozier, thank you for welcoming me into your home, I’m ever so delighted to be here, and by the way I’ve made a fruit of your son, we’re very much in love and I sure do hope you don’t mind it all that much! _ he could hardly get any of it down, only managing intermittent sips. The wine and Eddie himself did little talking that night. Eddie was lucky that if the Toziers did anything well, it was carrying on conversation. 

He tucked himself away in one of the eclectic little chairs in their library, which was, to the average person, a living room, but was crammed with so many books on shelves and tabletops and any flat surface a book could fit on that  _ library _ really was the only way to put it. Richie caught them up on his year, they him on theirs, and Eddie had to marvel at it. He’d put years between the last time he’d seen his mother in person and a few good months between the last time they’d spoken, and he couldn't think of a single thing he’d have to talk about with her. Maggie, apparently sensing Eddie’s nerves, politely kept from asking too much of him, and Richie had excused his silence for exhaustion when Went had failed to make a similar observation and had tried to get him to chat.

This prompted the awkward question neither of them had anticipated: would Richie mind taking the couch so Eddie could have the bedroom? There was no sense in two grown men sharing a bed. Which, in turn, led to quiet resignation on both of their parts, a silent round of tooth brushing, and Eddie settling, alone, into Richie’s teenage bedroom.

Wanting, at this point, for this whole thing to be over, Eddie snatched an old flannel off the back of the door two wrap around himself in place of Richie and kicked under the covers, trying to avoid the ogling eyes of the band posters (and what appeared to be disembodied VHS covers) smattered around the walls in an attempt to cover the admittedly atrocious floral wallpaper beneath. Sleep refused to come, leaving Eddie running a marathon around his own head. He could hear the silent settling in sounds and conversation from Richie’s parents as they tucked themselves in and couldn’t help wondering how Richie managed sharing a wall with his parents all throughout high school. Tried to wonder any number of benign things that didn’t pertain to their current predicament. Waited until silence fell upon the house and only the whirr of the heater permeated the night. Thought he heard a coyote’s voice carried from miles away over the flat cornfields seemingly surrounding the neighborhood, tried to shake it off. 

The moment his eyes had started to grow heavy, he was startled awake by the creak of the door, tensing for only a moment before recognizing Richie’s silhouette as he padded inside and quietly shut the door behind him. Sneaking in. 

Something about it made him smile, as Richie stripped out of his sweatpants and bear-crawled over Eddie to wedge himself between his body and the wall, clumsy arms tucking him securely to his chest. 

“Hi,” Richie whispered, almost sheepish about it. 

In place of replying, Eddie turned toward him, cupped his prickly jaw, and kissed him deeply enough to feel it in his bones. Richie responded immediately, a man who hadn’t realized he was starving being sat suddenly in front of a buffet. First kiss since they’d left their place, long overdue. Eddie breathed into him, hands stroking idly down the sides of his neck to the yolk of his shoulders, brain pleasant static until Richie bodily pressed him back into the mattress and started to roll on top of him. 

“Hey,” he muttered warningly, blood heating steadily under his skin. “What’s all this about?” 

“Call it teenage fantasy,” Richie said against Eddie’s lips, starting to sling a leg protectively over him. “I never got to have sex in this bed, I have been wanting to hear these old springs creak under you forever.” 

“We’re  _ not _ having sex with your parents next door,” Eddie hissed, squirming back until Richie was sucking down laughter to keep quiet. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

“I’m joking, dumbass, I’m not that fucked in the head,” Richie wheezed, flopping gracelessly down on top of Eddie and propping his chin on his sternum, peering up at him adoringly in the dimness. “I just missed you, I’d been thinking about snuggling up with you here while you make fun of my decor for weeks now.” 

Eddie’s heart turned to soup. Warm and runny, heaven on a cold day. “Sorry, man. Your trashy decor is the last thing I’m concerned with right now.” He stroked his hand over Richie’s forehead, smoothing his hair back. 

“Too worried to make fun of me,” Richie said, shaking his head lightly. “Something must be weighing on your pretty little head pretty heavily then, huh?” 

Eddie looked at him soberly. “What the fuck are we going to do?” 

Richie’s face fell. Glassesless, he looked stripped down, more naked than he was. He sighed through his nose, tipping his cheek to rest on Eddie’s chest. “We— we just try again tomorrow. Tell them. I don’t know why I assumed they’d get the memo without us saying anything, I just— don’t have my speech planned.” 

Eddie worried his lip in his teeth, considering. He counted a few precious seconds before making the suggestion, something he’d been privately considering asking in every weak moment since they’d made the decision to do this. 

“What— I mean, what if you don’t?” 

He felt Richie’s eyelashes brush his shirt when he blinked. “Don’t what?” 

Eddie’s mouth was dry. He nibbled the inside of his cheek, staring up at the popcorn ceiling. “Tell them? This time, at least.” 

Richie picked up his head slightly, expression unreadable. Eddie swallowed. 

“Rich, them not— noticing may have been a get-out-of-jail-free pass for us, I know we planned for this to be the year, but—”

“Eds,” Richie said, cutting him off. There was a note of seriousness in his voice, something that shut Eddie right up, regretting even suggesting chickening out. “I have to. I  _ want _ to. What am I going to do if we ever end up married, lie to them?” 

The  _ if _ of marriage, for them, was huge.

In his twenties, somewhere between his moving to LA and Eddie’s, Richie had fallen into a certain disenfranchisement with the concept of legalizing same-sex marriage. He’d tried several times to explain it to Eddie, had had other queer friends of theirs try to explain it, but it upside down to him. Eddie couldn’t wrap his head around why any gay person would be actively fighting against that. He didn’t care if it  _ played into compulsory heteronormativity _ or if  _ the nuclear family model was outdated and not inclusive of queer relationship dynamics _ . He wanted a ring on his finger and Richie’s name on his taxes. And that already felt like too much to ask. 

Eddie himself was only opposed currently out of fear of it being stripped away. After what had happened in San Francisco, after coming home from work in February flapping a newspaper in Richie’s face with overwhelmed happy tears in his eyes thinking there was a chance that this was happening, that someday he was going to get the ring and the joint tax forms, only to find out a month later that it was gone. If he and Richie had been one of those couples who’d managed to get hitched that winter (and Eddie had immediately considered proposing that year on Richie’s birthday), he couldn’t even fathom the pain of waking up one day and being told the whole thing was worthless, that their marriage had been annulled in their sleep. So he had a condition, now, if Richie ever started singing a different tune. He’d take them both down the aisle the day it was legal across the board, the day they could move to any state in the country and not worry that their marriage certificate wouldn’t be valid, the day he could stroll into any courthouse in the country with him and walk out as his husband.

All of that felt a little impossible, sometimes, but as Eddie tucked himself closer to Richie and breathed in the long familiar scent of his cologne, he remembered that, a long time ago, so had this. 

“Why, do you not want to?” 

Richie’s voice cut through the fog of Eddie’s thoughts and Eddie sighed. Shook his head. “I’m just scared, Rich. Tonight was— fine, just—”

“Awkward.” 

Eddie looked Richie over. Considered the weight of this to him. “Growing pains?” 

“What?” 

“This just— it’s going to take time, I think. To adjust. And it’s— scary. I think I just psyched myself out.” 

Eddie’s eyes fluttered when Richie combed cool fingers back through his hair. He hummed, surprised by the sudden affection in the gesture, blinking to find Richie looking intently at him.

“Scary’s no problem for you, slugger.” He pecked his temple. “You’ve confronted a hell of a lot harder than scary and come out on top.”

Warmth spread throughout Eddie’s chest, something within him squirming and kicking around. It still felt like that, after all this time, when Richie even hinted at believing in him more than he believed in himself. Richie had been steadily convincing Eddie he was brave since they day they met, but it still felt like something powerful when he told him out loud. Eddie hummed, hunkering down and wrapping his arms solidly around Richie. “Thanks, Rich.” 

Richie nodded, both of them falling quiet. The coyotes sang again, the heater clicked off, Eleanor squeezed through the crack in the door and padded quietly over to the bed, looking up at the pair of them. She hopped up a moment later, picking her way carefully through the rumpled sheets to settle behind Richie. She was purring in a moment.

“We’ll be alright,” Eddie promised, placing his palm at the center of Richie’s back to feel his breathing. “We’ll just tell them and they’ll handle it how they handle it.” 

“Right.” 

Eddie stroked Richie’s hair then, feeling him sink in against his shoulder. “It’ll be okay.” 

“I know it will,” Richie said, voice muffled in Eddie’s shirt. 

Eddie grinned at him in the darkness, swirling a dark curl around a finger. “I’m honestly kind of just reassuring myself by saying it out loud.”

He felt Richie smile against his neck. “Yeah, I know that too.” He tipped his head up and pressed a scratchy kiss to the underside of Eddie’s jaw. He breathed in and out, heavy, then yawned, breath skating over Eddie’s skin. “I should get back out there before we fall asleep.” He picked up his head and ran a broad palm down his face, blinking away sleep. “I managed to go my entire adolescence without getting caught sneaking out, I’m not about to mess with that streak.” The bedsprings creaked under him when he shifted. Eleanor chirped in protest.

“Stay,” Eddie said, voice tired, tugging at Richie’s sleeve when he made to get up. Richie looked back at him, almost caught off guard. “A little longer.” 

Richie looked over him, drinking in the sight of him curled up in his bed, clinging to him, wanting a last few minutes of reassurance before they braved the next day, and relaxed his shoulders. He caved, settled back down, kissed him. “Just a little longer.” 

Richie had, long ago, confided in Eddie the story of him deciding rather suddenly to pack up his life for California after a certain phone call. For the second time in his life, Richie dropped a bomb over French toast, and Went, again, dropped his fork. The clattering rung in Eddie’s ears, his hand death gripping Richie’s knee privately under the table, Richie’s sweaty palm laid protectively over the back of it, nails suddenly digging in.

Went had asked about Richie’s most recent tour plans. Richie had, so nonchalantly that Eddie nearly missed it himself, mentioned that Eddie was trying to get off work to come with this time, it was still a relatively quick tour, not overly prolific or far-away venues, but that Steve wasn’t that thrilled with him bringing his boyfriend with him. Maggie had smiled, maybe thinking it a joke for a split second, Eddie had looked petrified, face turning white, Maggie had noticed and suddenly paled and looked at Went, who had dropped his fork and split the quaint pleasantness of the morning right down the middle.

“Eddie’s—” he stopped, and attempted mouthing several other words to clarify.  _ Your, he’s, boyf— _

Eddie noticed Maggie, expression a little blank, rest a hand on Went’s leg. Went quickly picked up his fork, the handle sticky with syrup. “Well.” He shook his hand out, eyes on the table, ferreting around for a napkin and resolutely not looking up. Eddie felt ill, thinking immediately about running off and hiding in the bathroom again, unable to look anywhere but his plate in turn. His pulse pounded in his ears, the rushing sound of blood blocking out all coherent thought. 

Richie cleared his throat unavoidably awkwardly. “Yeah,” he said, and it was suddenly the most clipped conversation Eddie had ever witnessed between the Toziers. “He is. Has been for the last three years.” 

Eddie had to look up. First at Richie, jaw set, gaze even as he stared across the table into the face of his mother, knee and hand starting to tremble under and on top of Eddie’s. 

“Three  _ years?” _ Maggie finally said, her forced-calm facade finally breaking into surprise. Eddie squeezed Richie’s hand, forcing himself to swallow and remember to breathe. 

“Three years in October,” Eddie choked out, feeling the need to chime in about then. “Since— since this October. We— I—” 

Went held his hands up suddenly, looking Eddie over, and both Richie and Eddie redirected their gazes to the table. “Slow down for a second here, boys.” 

“Wentworth—” 

“I’m not— I’m just  _ asking, _ Mags,” Went said, and Eddie laughed suddenly, clapping a hand over his mouth, mortified. 

“Sorry—”

“What?” Went asked, but he looked genuinely a little startled, Richie, out of the corner of Eddie’s vision, shocked. 

“I—” Eddie squeaked, unsure why the fuck he’d think to laugh at a moment like this. He clammed up and shook his head, face going red.

“You’re not gay,” Went said to Richie, bewildered, and Maggie snapped her gaze to him. 

Richie huffed a little laugh, reaching over to pat Eddie’s arm with his far hand. “Oh, no, I’m not, but Eddie here sure as hell is—” 

The joke didn’t land. 

“If you’re not— w— are you bisexual?” Maggie cut in, something dawning on her face. Eddie looked between Richie and his mother, surprised. “Richie—”

“Why didn’t you tell us you were gay?” Went said, looking frantically between the three of them for anyone with an answer. 

“Went he’s not  _ gay,  _ he’s biseuxal, it’s different,” Maggie hissed, expression stern on her husband. 

Richie’s mouth was slightly slack, gaze pingponging between his parents, gears in his mind clicking and whirring. Eddie stared between Maggie and her son, wondering how the fuck she figured that one out so quickly.

“How so? If Eddie’s gay—” 

Eddie thought then about hedgehogs and how they could curl into protective balls of spikes, and regretted dearly that he’d been born human and not hedgehog. 

“He l— you like girls still, Richie, right? That’s the difference.” 

Richie closed his mouth and opened it again, tipping his head to the side slightly. _ In a nutshell, _ Eddie could almost hear him think, then watched him blink and change tracks. “I mean, I really like Eddie, actually.” 

And that, somehow, filled Eddie with this strange, defiant, giddy sort of energy. That it didn’t matter, truly, who was gay or what, that Richie had chosen him, had wanted the opportunity to choose him since they were kids, had been choosing him again and again since they met. His cheeks went pink, more of a glow than anything, and he had to look away from the rest of them just to deal privately with the wave of emotion that brought on for him. He could feel Richie look briefly to him, otherwise holding his gaze steady on his parents. Eddie was bursting with a lot, but there was a burning sense of pride in there, startled, as always, by Richie’s boldness and bravery when it came to this. In a lot of ways, this was harder than making anything public. This was so much more vulnerable, exposing something this sensitive to people whose opinions actually mattered to him. 

“I  _ told _ you,” Maggie said suddenly, smacking at Went’s bicep, effectively knocking the slice of toast he’d been attempting to fork into his mouth back onto his plate.

_ “What?” _ Richie squeaked, finally the one caught off guard. He held up a hand, looking between his parents. “Wait wait wait, told him what, exactly?”

“You knew?” Eddie blurted, jumping back in then. He and Richie shared a glance, as did Went and Maggie. 

“I didn’t  _ know _ know,” Maggie said, picking up a napkin for something to do with her hands. “You two have always been— close.” Went was staring at her then, baffled. “I didn’t— all I’m saying is it makes sense now that you’ve said it.” 

“But you told Dad  _ what, _ exactly?” Richie asked again, more insistent. 

“You weren’t the most macho little boy in the world, Rich,” Went said. 

Maggie quickly cut in. “Neither was your father, for the record, that’s not why—”

“And we were relieved when you started taking an interest in girls—”

“Not  _ relieved, _ just—”

“No, not relieved,” Went said, tipping his head back and looking for the right word. 

Richie’s voice cracked slightly. “You thought I was  _ gay?” _ Eddie found it within himself, somehow, to feel embarrassed, and pressed his face into his hands.

“I think we’re getting a little off track, here, honey,” Maggie said, replacing a hand on Went’s arm. “Richie, we— you just never told us, this still comes as a surprise.”

Richie tried to settle himself, moving a hand quietly over to Eddie’s knee, not wanting to lose contact. “I— lemme backtrack a little, I—” he took a short breath, lifting his free hand to gesture lightly. “Yes, I’m bisexual, so yeah I— the interest in girls was genuine. I honestly never thought I’d have to tell you, I sincerely thought I would be able to pull off just dating women and you’d never be the wiser, but.” 

Eddie lowered his hands, breathing as evenly as he could. He was almost afraid to fully turn his head, instead looking at Richie out of the corner of his eye. 

“But?” Maggie said, an eyebrow lifting slightly. 

“This fucker went and made me fall in love with him.” He patted Eddie’s leg. 

“Sorry,” Eddie said, immediately, and Maggie laughed.

“Eddie,” she said, fondly. “That’s nothing to be sorry about.” 

Went pointed between the two of them. “So you two are together. Dating together. For the past three years.”

Eddie nodded, feeling unsettled where he sat in his chair. He felt dreadfully itchy again, bursting with nervous energy. 

“Yeah,” Richie said. “That’s what— that’s what we’re getting at here.” 

Went nodded. “Huh.” He took a quiet bite of French toast, and Eddie could feel Richie stiffen beside him. “Wow,” Went said, half under his breath. “Here I thought your mother and I met young, now here you are topping us out with a sandbox sweetheart. Can’t let us win, can you?”

Maggie laughed again, and Richie dropped his head slightly to snicker. 

“I don’t know what we’re— stop eating.” 

“What? We’re at breakfast.”

“Wentworth, our kid just came out to us and is trying to introduce us to his boyfriend, there are more important matters at hand.” 

“It’s  _ Eddie,  _ Mags, he’s not  _ introducing _ us to the boy, we’ve known the boy since before he could spell his own last name.” 

“Are you guys just fine with this?” Richie said, a pang of vulnerability present in his voice. “I mean— d—” 

“Sweetheart,” Maggie said, and Eddie felt very strangely about the way Maggie looked at Richie then, all quiet reassurance, no sense of coddling. “I wish you would have told us earlier, you didn’t have to keep this big secret for as long as you did, but I’m just happy you told us at all. And Eddie—” 

Eddie’s spine clicked, sitting up perfectly straight, wide eyed. 

Maggie beamed at him then. “What the fuck am I saying, Jesus Christ, I haven’t congratulated the two of you, this is good news!” 

“Well,” Went said, and Eddie immediately felt a little sick. “You would be the one to domesticate him, huh?” He finally cracked a smile, and Eddie felt a huge wave of relief flood through him. He laughed dryly, mostly out of residual nerves. 

“Yeah, I— yeah.” Words wouldn’t come, oddly, his brain stuffed with static, needing more time to process before he settled. 

“God, I was so happy when you two got to be friends again in college, and when you said Eddie was moving out to California with you—” Maggie shook her head, grinning at the two of them. “That’s quite the love story.” 

“Yeah,” Richie said, chest puffing out slightly, hand squeezing Eddie’s. He looked at him out of the corner of his vision, face breaking into a beam. “Tell me about it.” 

The morning and following afternoon still felt, in part, like walking on eggshells. Maggie asked a few questions here and there, all polite and genuinely interested mom stuff, marveling at the fact of them the whole time. It was hard not to feel proud, but Eddie was still hesitant to be too obvious or out about it. Went seemed slightly more withdrawn, and Eddie couldn’t help but notice the glances he was sneaking at him throughout the day, making him feel on edge. The house began to bloom with aroma, Maggie’s prep cooking mouthwatering. Richie was recruited to help her chop vegetables for a casserole, and Eddie was contently watching them from the kitchen table, Cat Stevens crooning on the radio, when Went came in briefly from the backyard. 

He too glanced at the pair in the kitchen, then to Eddie, making him sit up straight.

“Eddie, I’ve got some wood scraps to burn, you wanna help me outside for a minute?”

Eddie stood up so fast he nearly knocked his chair over, stumbling and righting it. Went blinked, Richie glanced over his shoulder at him for a moment, and Eddie cleared his throat. 

“Sure just— lemme grab my coat.” 

The backyard was small, the fences butting up against others. There was an apple tree in addition to the willow and a large oak with a scraggly looking rope swing next to a vegetable garden, half the beds empty for the Fall. A stack of chopped up branches sat in front of a small shed which Went lead Eddie over to, handing him a bundle for him to carry to the fire pit at the center of the yard. The sky was streaked with orange as the sun began to sink, frogs that hadn’t yet sank into the mud to hibernate still singing in the distance, a cardinal taking off from a tree branch. The air even smelled cold, hints of impending winter heavy on the breeze. Eddie carried a few armfuls of wood back and forth, taking a little more in each trip than was perhaps necessary, feeling the need to, silently and uselessly, prove something. He wasn’t sure what. 

Went was quiet for the most part, just watching and directing, and he disappeared once into the garage to grab lighter fluid. 

“I gotta say, Eddie,” he said, finally breaking the silence and making Eddie’s pulse race. He dumped the lighter fluid over their wood pile and dug in his pocket for a match. “I’m just not over how much you look like your dad.”

Something cold settled into the pit of Eddie’s stomach. He held Went’s gaze for only a moment before nodding, looking away. “Oh.” He itched his neck, unaccustomed to the heavy coat and cool weather. There was that terrible desperate clawing feeling in the back of his mind that cropped up every time anyone so much as mentioned his father, that plea to know anything. Something he tried often not to think about, but which was hard, especially around Went. He swallowed, feeling the indeed to say something more. “Did you—” he let himself trail off. 

Went watched him carefully, and Eddie couldn’t help but feel examined. “I definitely didn’t know him well, only met him a couple times. I actually met him and your mom before you guys started kindergarten, right when he was starting to get really sick. You really do look just like him, it’s crazy.” 

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Eddie said. He bent down to adjust one of the stones around the fire pit, wedging it back into place, trying to ignore the way his hands shook.

“I bet you do.”

Silence fell between them briefly as Went dropped the match and lit the wood, smoke curling upward from it into the coloring sky. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and Eddie did the same, mouth oddly dry. Something clattered from inside, Eddie heard Maggie and Richie laugh. 

Went drew in a breath and rocked back on his heels, looking into the fire rather than at Eddie directly. “Yeah, it’s funny, looking back on it. Richie’s more of a mama’s boy than he’ll admit. He was crying and hanging on Maggie’s dress, didn’t want a thing to do with any of the other kids, and then here you come— I remember because you nearly bowled me over and you were so little, but god you were fast— you bolted straight from the curb into the building without looking back, kiddo.” 

Time seemed to slow. Eddie felt an ache creep into his temples, something like a stress headache, while his stomach tightened up. It wasn’t an altogether bad feeling, just tense. Strange to hear anyone but his own mother talk about him as a kid. Talk about Richie. His dad. 

“You mom was beside herself,” Went went on, “but your dad was with her, he was starting to slow down a bit, I’m pretty sure he’d lost most of his hair, but I remember him asking me which one was mine, you know. I dunno, if you two— it’s— dads. Dad thing. But I pointed out poor Maggie who’d finally pried Rich off of her, you know, I think he saw you and bucked up a little. So many other kids were in tears like he was, but I think you took him by surprise.” Eddie was staring at him now, inexplicable emotion rising up in the back of his throat. His jaw twitched, fingers picking idly at the loose threads in his coat pockets. Went looked on into the fire, reminiscing. “Frank was ecstatic about you, kid, he was so excited to point you out.” 

Eddie felt a lump form in his throat. “Really?” 

“Oh, yeah,” Went said. “Like I said, I didn’t know him super well, but we’d catch each other picking you guys up or dropping you off sometimes, some other parent shit here and there.” He wet his lips, glancing at Eddie for only a second before looking back to the fire, which had started to blaze in earnest. His face was lit in sharp relief, and Eddie could see the resemblance Richie bore to his father as well. The shape of his eyes, the bridge of his nose, the high cheekbones. They were built so differently, but it was there in the face, in the voice. “Man, did he love your mom. She was his shining star, I’ll tell you. That’s what I liked about him when I first met him, I could tell your mom was his whole world— you and your mom. He was a proud dad, I’ll tell you that much. Beaming that first day of kindergarten. Sick as a dog but still made it to see you off and be there for your mom. He was kind of a quiet guy, you know, but he had this— sort of reverence for the two of you. Like he was the luckiest guy on earth.” Went shook his head, and Eddie dropped his gaze to his sneakers in the grass. 

He had to close his eyes for a minute, fearing he’d tear up if he let himself. The smoke wasn’t helping. 

Another quiet moment passed between the two of them, pensive silence. Eddie wasn’t sure what to do, head spinning a little, the events of the day and then this making him feel more exhausted than he was. At least he’d get to spend the night in bed with Richie again, wind down with him. Still holding on to worry, but with the worst over. “Thank you,” he said, surprising himself a little. 

Went looked at him. “For what?” 

“For— telling me that. And having me here. And just— the everything.” 

“The everything, huh?” 

Eddie finally met his eyes, nodding slowly. “Yeah. I was really nervous about all of this, so was Richie, obviously, but— just— thank you.” 

Went nodded, sighing, gently elbowing Eddie’s arm without taking his hands out of his pockets. It was a subtle gesture, but so oddly fatherly that Eddie wasn’t really sure how to feel. 

“I don’t know if I’m going to say any of the right things with this. I’d be lying if I said you boys didn’t take me by surprise with this whole thing. But Eddie, if it’s gotta be anyone, I’m glad it's you.” 

Eddie stared at him, pulse jumping again. Went looked him over and smiled, then looked once again back to the flames, sighing. 

“I’ve wished life was easier on Richie his whole life, and I worried about this kind of thing when he was younger because I worried that would make it harder, but as long as you’re making him happy, as long as you make each other happy, that’s what I need to focus on. That’s all I care about.” He lifted a shoulder, snorting to himself. “That, and you’re gonna need to pry him off his mama one more time. I love him, but he’s almost thirty, we can’t have him living as a bachelor here if anything goes pear shaped. And I have a feeling you’re exactly the right person to keep him grounded out there in LA.” 

Eddie’s laugh was a little airy, conflicting with something like a sob of relief. “I— yeah. I can handle him. He handles me, too. He’s— he’s great. Really, I’m the lucky one, sometimes I honestly can’t believe it either.” 

“You love him?” 

It was a tumble off a precipice. Eddie felt like he’d made grander leaps of faith, he’d fallen harder and further with less of a safety net. He stood at the edge, faced it down, and drew a careful breath, meeting Went’s eyes. “More than anything.” 

Went clapped a hand to his shoulder, 

“See, I told you you look just like your dad. Same look on your face.” 

The back door creaked open, a panel of light spreading across the darkening grass. Richie was silhouetted in the doorway for a moment, three bottles of beer in hand, denim jacket donned but unbuttoned. He padded off the porch and headed out toward them, lifting the bottles. “Mom told me to bring these out to you guys.” He handed one to each of them. “She actually said ‘bring these out to the boys,’ so I think she’s decided that Eddie wears the pants and I’m the housewife.”

“You’re sorely mistaken if you think I wear the pants in this house, Rich,” Went said, clapping Richie firmly on the shoulder. “You mind watching the fire for me for a bit?” 

Richie took a swig of his own beer. “You’re trusting me with a fire? Right next to your house?”

“No, but I want to go be sappy with your mother and I have a feeling you two both don’t want to see that and want a little time to yourselves, so I’m trusting Eddie to keep you from somehow burning the place down.” He clinked the bottom of his bottle against Eddie’s and headed back toward the house. “Keep warm.”

Eddie watched him go as he popped the top of his beer, already somehow warmer as Richie sidled up next to him. “What’d he say to you?”

“Nothing bad.” Eddie, hands cold, reached for Richie’s hand, warm, and linked their fingers. Richie instinctively shuffled closer to warm him up, lit beautifully by the flames. The sun had gone down quickly, leaving them in a navy blue ink kind of darkness. “Your mom?”

“She’s very enchanted by the whole story. It’s sweet.” 

Eddie ducked his head, grinning. “Enchanted, huh?”

“Absolutely.” Richie glanced back at the house before pressing a warm kiss to Eddie’s cheek. “Never thought I’d be involved in anything that can be regarded as enchanting.” 

Eddie begged to differ, but did so silently. “So everything’s okay?” 

Richie sighed, took a swig. “I think so. I’m sure— they’ll probably have questions, they might be a little cagey about it for a while, but all signs point to things being just— fine.” 

Eddie sighed as well. Fine was enough, fine was perfect. 

Richie dropped Eddie’s hand for only a moment to button up his jacket, setting his beer on the edge of the fire pit for only a moment, then picked it back up and slung an arm around Eddie’s shoulders, tucking him close. “What’s on your mind, peabrain?”

Eddie answered honestly. “Did we meet in kindergarten?”

Richie narrowed his eyes, taking a slow drink. “Maybe in passing, but I don’t remember really hanging out with you until like third grade.” 

Eddie blinked at him, glancing up at him. “Third grade?”

“Yeah, we were like eight.” 

“I didn’t think we actually met until we were eleven.” 

“What?” 

“Your dad said he saw me on our first day of kindergarten, too, I d—”

“No, we were in third grade, because Bill invited me to his eighth birthday after school, I remember that.” 

“I thought you met Bill through Stanley,” Eddie said, eyebrows crunching down. 

“No, Stan didn’t come around until we were like ten, I knew Bill way before that. I knew  _ you _ before that,” Richie insisted. 

“But— no, it was you and Stan together, you guys became friends and Stan was in the same class as Bill, then all of us started hanging out together when they became friends.”

Richie gave him an odd look. “Eddie.” 

Eddie looked back at him, incredulous. “Do you think I’d forget how we met?”

“No, you just— clearly remember it differently. Or I just didn’t make enough of an impression on you when I was eight?” 

“Richie, are you kidding? You made a huge fucking impression on me, of course I remember how we met, but we were  _ eleven—” _

“No, w—” 

Richie gasped aloud when something rustled the leaves of the oak, something like a gust of wind or a large bird taking off. Eddie thought he saw a shadow cross the dark sky, but with the brightness of the fire so close it could have been a trick of the light. He snatched the hem of Richie’s jacket and held on regardless, both of them spooked into an uneasy silence. 

“Fuck, I wish I wasn’t so goddamn jumpy,” Richie said, holding Eddie a little closer. “Fucking comes with the territory of growing up in such a hellhole, though, doesn’t it?” 

“Exhibit fucking— Q as to why you’re stuck with me. How the fuck would you explain any of that weird bullshit to someone else?” 

“I tried to, once.” Richie rubbed Eddie’s sleeve. “She definitely didn’t get it. I don’t even fucking get it. I know we were bullied, obviously, and there was other— fucky shit at play, god knows, but— fuck.” He scrubbed the back of his hand down his face. Took another swig of beer. 

“God, I fucking hated that place.” Eddie shook his head, tucking himself closer under Richie’s arm and closing his eyes. He felt Richie nod in agreement. The quiet of the night ticked on, the fire crackling lightly, branches already sinking into each other and collapsing into ash. 

“Well, baby, I’ve got good news. We made it out. I don’t think we could have physically moved further from Derry, we made it.” He scrubbed his hand up and down Eddie’s arm. “We never have to go back.”

California was home. Eddie never thought it would be, never thought he would be able to stand the heat and the traffic and the smog, but with Richie shivering in the cold next to him, nose pink, arm tight around him, he didn’t want to be anywhere else. “Thank fucking god.” He glanced up to Richie, drinking in the sight of him in the orange glow of the flames. “You okay, big guy?” 

Richie nodded slowly. “I think this went well. I’m— still kind of processing it, I’m sure I’ll freak out a little when we get home, but— it went well.” 

“It really did.”

They met each other’s gaze, locked in and safe, and smiled. Eddie went up on his toes the same time Richie craned his neck down and they met in the middle, lips cold, pulses steady. Eddie dropped back down after a moment, setting his head on Richie’s shoulder. 

Richie shifted slightly, voice dropping slightly. “So, you come here often?” 

A laugh cracked through the somber night, Eddie smacking Richie’s arm. “I hate your guts, you dumb fucking sasquatch. You’re shaking, can we go inside yet?” 

“Yeah, the fire will burn itself out pretty quick.” Richie pecked him one more time before dropping his arm from his shoulders to take his hand as they headed for the house. “You’re not so sick of me that you won’t let me sleep with you tonight, are you?” 

Eddie sighed, rolling his eyes, but the smile gave him away. “Not yet.” 

Not ever.

Not having realized he dozed off, Eddie woke up to cool air combing through his hair, dying sunshine warming his shoulders and ears. He blinked his eyes open, finding himself once again in Richie’s passenger seat, top down, speeding away from the airport towards home.

The day was still golden, palm trees sluicing through the skyline, spearing up between the snaking concrete tracks of highway. He’d been dreaming, he realized, of November in Maine, of the rich color adorning the leaves, the crisp chill in the air that always signaled the coming of his birthday, a new year. He was almost surprised to find himself warm, especially after the three days of midwestern chill. Not so cold, color not so brilliant, give and take. But here was home. 

Richie’s hair was illuminated by the sinking sun, gold leaf halo adorning the ends of his curls. He’d recently bought himself prescription sunglasses: gone were the ridiculous days of stacking shades on top of his glasses, almost always losing them when the top was down without fail. Eddie was permitted a moment to watch, Richie not having realized he’d woken up yet. He was drumming on the steering wheel, mouthing along to the words, head bobbing just slightly out of time. Eddie rested his head back against the seat, grinning lazily at him, coming slowly out of the clutches of sleep. 

The rest of the visit had been good. Easy, actually. Something about it felt natural, felt like maybe it was supposed to. Maggie had prepared a feast, and Eddie was still drowsy from it, exhausted from the food and the traveling and the whole main event of the trip. 

In all his life, Eddie had dreaded the holidays, the obligation to go home. He gazed over at Richie, considering everything that was different. Everything that had changed with him. 

Eddie thought he might just be the luckiest guy on Earth.

Richie hissed through his teeth and tried to brake smoothly when they came up upon the usual rush hour traffic, slowing to a crawl on a high overpass arcing over the city. He pressed his lips together, reaching for the dial on the radio and taking the chance to glance over at Eddie, face opening up when he found him awake. 

“There you are, sleeping beauty. Have a good nap?” 

Eddie blinked up at him, sitting up more fully and stretching his arms over his head. “I want ice cream.”

“We can arrange for that, I’m sure.” Richie dropped an arm onto the center console, palm up, and Eddie easily sank his fingers in between his. The song on the radio faded out and a new one began, Richie pumping one fist into the air. “I fucking love this song.” 

Eddie closed his eyes again, drinking in the sound, drinking in the moment, feeling each point of contact where Richie’s hand met his own. He held onto him tightly, taking in a deep breath of the dry hot air. As the car rolled to a stop on the highway, cars in front of them joining a chorus of honking, Richie cranked up the radio, washing them over with sound. 

_ Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling _

_ Down, down, down, down _

He was inevitable, this was blessedly inevitable. The how, the when, those details were subject to change. It wasn’t exactly predestined, there was choice involved. But it wasn’t all chance. And what mattered was the now, the here.

Richie began to sing along, drumming on the steering wheel, and Eddie watched him for a moment, delighted, laughing, before joining in. Richie squeezed his hand and tipped his head back, singing up toward the pinkening sky. 

Something inside Eddie was bursting, in a moment feeling as if something had finally come to a close, something had finally resolved, without having come to an end. They still had pages upon pages to go, but for once in his life, Eddie was looking forward to it. He watched Richie make a fool of himself until he tired himself out to humming, rocking lightly in his seat, sunshine beaming down on him. 

“Hey,” Eddie said, leaning over the console slightly. 

“What, good looking?”

Eddie braced his arm against Richie’s arm rest and stole a kiss, warm and happy and promising something without words. Richie’s eyes were still closed for a moment when he pulled back, and he blinked them open, looking very slightly in awe. Eddie hoped he looked at him like that after they kissed for the rest of their lives. 

Richie leaned forward abruptly and fingered the button next to the steering wheel to put up the top of the car, bottom lip pinched between his teeth. 

“What the fuck are you doing now?” Eddie asked, near laughing. “Afraid you’re gonna get sunburnt?” 

“No, I wanna kiss you, and I’m going to kiss you properly, and it’s going to be absolutely obscene and unfit for public view.”

Eddie cracked up as the car top descended over them, creaking as it went, and Richie scrambled to roll up the windows. He reached over to him with both arms and Eddie pretended to fight it, laughing, squirming back in the seat until Richie was kissing him, melting slowly into it. The music carried on around them, a low hum in the background, Eddie easily sinking his fingers into Richie’s hair once he’d caught him and savoring the taste of him, the feeling of him, being his. 

They kissed through the sunset with the traffic at a standstill, safe from view, locked away in their own place, their own time. 

There was more to go. More to do, more to worry about, more to overcome. But they had a running start. 

What they had for now was all theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Mentioned:   
> Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds
> 
> If you havent read the stupid clown brick: congrats, you’ve now completed a fanfiction based off it that’s only 100k words shy. If you have: i'm sorry to make you read something that length twice, but i commend your commitment. 
> 
> its been a crazy hard and crazy rewarding experience writing this over the past year, and i wont wax poetic about it now but i have learned a lot and had a lot of fun along the way. i hope you enjoyed it as much as i did. this started out as an ideal situation concept between my best friend and i who wanted both the horror to remain intact but to explore what would happen if the losers didnt lose each other in the in-between years and it evolved into a lot more than that, which is pretty kickass. this will always be my first complete and published fanfiction (yay!) and i know its always going to be a story that’s really near and dear to my heart. i cant believe the response i got on this stupid thing, and im so so appreciative of everyone who read it or left a kind word for me. (sometimes tons of kind words, i cannot voice how awesome it was seeing some of the annotated notes style comments, holy fuck)
> 
> i'll be around for a while, and i do have plans for part two. i can't make any promises, but i have a feeling you'll get something out of me in reference to this fic hopefully over the summer. in the mean time, i'm sure i'll still be writing, so keep an eye out and come say hi :)
> 
> thank you guys for everything! it's been great :,)

**Author's Note:**

> [soundtrack](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5zwxW8gDeWv1FJcdctYm0B?si=-_5EJ5SsQ8iKZtVcTrotug)
> 
> [author’s twitter](https://twitter.com/hippity_hoppy)
> 
> [author’s tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/hippityhoppy) (less active but come say hi!)


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